By Emily D. Williams

After reading the story headlined “Panola records first 2012 West Nile Case” in Friday’s edition of The Panolian, the victim contacted the newspaper because she felt she needed to speak about the diverse symptoms the disease presents.

The patient, who asked not to be identified, is a previously healthy, white female, age 45, of Batesville. She said she first experienced a migraine headache, rather than the commonly reported flu-like symptoms. That was July 18.

After numerous visits with different doctors she was diagnosed 10 weeks later with West Nile poliomyelitis, a complication developed from the West Nile virus (WNV), the mosquito-spread disease.

This week the Mississippi State Department of Health reports 213 confirmed WNV cases in Mississippi, with only one in Panola.

The local WNV patient now uses a wheelchair to get around and is not able to work.

“I had never been sick in my life,” she said.

She described the day she became ill: “I had a horrible migraine and had to close the office. I went home and woke up the next morning with the same migraine but nauseous,” she said.

She went to work the next day despite the continuing migraine. She said she became severely sick then broke out in a rash that looked like measles. She sought medical attention and was first treated for an allergic reaction and sent home.

Within a few days she said she was paralyzed with severe pain in her hips and legs.

She was then diagnosed and treated for a bulging disc in her back. After nine weeks a neurologist referred her to the Health Department to be tested for West Nile virus.

Within a week she was diagnosed with a complication of the West Nile virus, West Nile poliomyelitis, an inflammation of the spinal cord that causes a syndrome similar to that caused by the poliovirus.

Approximately 80 percent of people (about 4 out of 5) who are infected with WNV will not show any symptoms at all, according to the Web site of the Centers for Disease Control.

But about one in 150 people infected with WNV will develop severe illness, like the Batesville woman.

The severe symptoms can include high fever, headache, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, coma, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, vision loss, numbness and paralysis. These symptoms may last several weeks, and neurological effects may be permanent, the CDC said.

Persons with the more rare West Nile poliomyelitis may develop sudden or rapidly progressing weakness generally not associated with any numbness or loss of sensation, the CDC notes. But the weakness may be associated with severe pain, as in the Batesville woman’s case.

She said she mainly wanted to get her story out to make people aware of this type of West Nile.
Because of the need for more study of this syndrome, the woman has been asked to allow doctors to closely monitor her case.

“They want me to go to a hospital in Memphis to watch the virus take its course and try to gather more data and follow me to see if progression has occurred,” she said.

She will go back to the doctor next week and ask more questions. She said she was too emotional once she finally got the diagnosis to ask many questions about the virus and how long it will take to run its course.