Polio survivor is pain-free thanks to horse treatment

A polio survivor from Mansfield Woodhouse has hailed the success of a treatment originally used on horses '“ for managing her condition.

Sue Porter, aged 66, has become one of the first people to use an Arc4Health device to manage pain.

The device mimics the body’s natural electrical current and reintroduces from an external source, speeding up healing – and has traditionally been used on horses.

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Sue said: “It was very odd using a machine that was originally for horses. They had to get permission to use it on humans.

“At that point everything was going south, I was in pain and had difficulty walking. I would of tried anything.

“After using the device I went from walking with a stick to taking the dogs for a walk.

“I use it every day, it goes on for six hours at a time, I know about it when I hadn’t put it on in a few days.”

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Sue originally contracted polio in 1952, when she was just 18 months.

She was diagnosed with infantile paralysis, which led to years of her wearing a calliper with a built-up shoe.

She was fine throughout her adult life, but began to develop pain in her feet and back 15 years ago.

Working in equine PR Sue was asked to test it out.

She said: “I didn’t know what was going wrong, I had pains in my feet which increased over the years.

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“I had severe pain in my toes and feet which annoyingly came at night and stopped me from sleeping.”

Tests revealed have mild osteoarthritis in her hip and slight spondylosis of the spine as a result of her polio as a infant as she was left with one leg longer than the other.

British Polio Federation agreed her symptoms matched up with post-polio syndrome .