Kadi Renowden, WI

Kadi Renowden, age 63, Madison, WI -September 2006

Kadi still works full time in an active hospital job, but manifested WNV over Labor Day, 2006 with the usual symptoms (headache, severe fatigue, muscle and neck pain, nausea). Her temperature was low grade, only about 100, but a white blood count at the urgent care was extremely low. Kadi, a nurse, told the MD at urgent care she thought she had WNV, as mosquitoes swarmed around her back porch, undeterred by DEETand she'd had many bites 8 days earlier. She was told she didn't have WNV. She has little recollection of the following 3 days, except for developing a rash, again being told she didn't have WNV when a call was placed to urgent care. Symptoms persisted for nearly 2 weeks, including another acute bout with nausea.

She returned to her internist to check her blood count before returning to work, suggesting she'd had WNV. "You don't have WNV," she was told. Kadi is also a post polio survivor with post polio symptoms. WNV attacks the anterior horn cells of the spinal cord, in the same manner that WNV does, with many correlations. After multiple increased falls, including twice down stairs in 3 weeks, she knew her legs were significantly weaker . She requested another EMG of her legs (a diagnostic test for neuromuscular disorders). Believing she had had WNV, she asked the Dr. to order a test. She had also learned that a neighbor 2 blocks away had been hospitalized for the same time she'd been ill. She was found to be positive for WNV, the 21st confirmed case in WI in 2006. Her own Dr. still refutes that she knew when she had it.

Testing at the time she came down with it might not have tested positive. Therefore, anyone who believes they have the virus need to be tested around a week later, if negative initially.

Kadi's post polio symptoms have been aggravated by the WNV, not unexpectedly, with continued symptoms of sleepiness , fatigue and increased muscle pain. She feels her symptoms may have resolved better had she been tested and encouraged to recuperate more than the 3 days she lost from work; if doctors had listened and paid attention to the symptoms, instead of discounting them. This is possibly the first reported case of a post polio syndrome patient contracting WNV. Since the effect WNV non post polio symptoms is yet unknown, PPS patients need to be especially judicious to avoid exposure, given the specific mechanisms of both diseases, with a worsening of PPS symptoms.