Frida Kahlo lived with a cascade of medical conditions that began in early childhood and compounded throughout her life. She contracted polio at age six, survived a catastrophic bus accident at eighteen that shattered her spine and pelvis, and spent the next three decades enduring chronic pain, failed surgeries, miscarriages, and ultimately the amputation of her right leg. Some researchers also believe she was born with a congenital spinal defect called spina bifida occulta, which may have made her spine more vulnerable to injury.
Polio at Age Six
In 1913, Kahlo contracted polio and spent several months bedridden. The paralytic form of the disease left permanent damage to her right leg, which remained visibly thinner, slightly deformed, and shorter than her left. She wore built-up shoes to compensate for the difference in leg length. Over time, trophic ulcers (open sores caused by poor nerve function and blood flow) developed on her right foot, a recurring problem that would worsen for decades and cause her considerable pain.
The 1925 Bus Accident
At eighteen, Kahlo was riding a wooden bus in Mexico City when it collided with a streetcar. The impact was devastating. She suffered fractures in her spine, right leg, collarbone, and pelvis. Her shoulder was dislocated and her right foot was crushed. Most horrifically, an iron handrail from the bus pierced her abdomen and uterus.
The spinal fractures alone would have been life-altering, but the full combination of injuries set the course for everything that followed: chronic spinal instability, nerve damage, circulatory problems in her right leg, and permanent damage to her reproductive organs. In her letters, Kahlo later described damage to her sciatic nerve and other nerves extending to her genitals.
A Possible Congenital Condition
Some medical researchers who have studied Kahlo’s case believe she was born with spina bifida occulta, a condition where one or more vertebrae don’t fully close during fetal development. It often causes no symptoms on its own, but it can make the spine structurally weaker. If Kahlo did have this condition, it may help explain why the accident caused such extensive and persistent spinal damage, and why so many later surgeries failed to provide lasting relief.
Miscarriages and Infertility
Kahlo desperately wanted children but was never able to carry a pregnancy to term. The iron handrail that pierced her abdomen in the bus accident critically injured her uterine lining, and researchers have theorized that this trauma led to a condition called Asherman’s syndrome, where significant scar tissue forms inside the uterine cavity. That scarring is believed to have caused the repeated miscarriages and pregnancy failures she experienced throughout her life, a source of profound grief that she depicted in several of her most haunting paintings.
Decades of Surgeries
Kahlo’s medical history reads like a catalog of orthopedic interventions, most of them unsuccessful. The problems started with her right foot: the trophic ulcers from polio continued to worsen, and in 1934 surgeons removed five of her toes. In 1936, the small bones at the base of her foot were removed and a procedure was performed on her sympathetic nerves to try to restore circulation to the leg.
Her spine required repeated operations. By 1950, after several previous spinal surgeries had failed, doctors recommended fusing four of her lumbar vertebrae together. During that procedure, bone was harvested from her hip and inserted between the vertebrae to limit movement and reduce pain. The surgery kept her hospitalized for months. She spent long stretches of her life confined to bed, often immobilized in plaster or steel orthopedic corsets designed to support her damaged spine. These corsets became a recurring image in her art, symbols of both physical confinement and emotional resilience.
In 1953, gangrene developed in her right leg, the same leg weakened by polio nearly four decades earlier. Doctors amputated below the knee. The loss devastated her.
Chronic Pain and Its Toll
Pain was a constant in Kahlo’s adult life. The spinal fractures, nerve damage, circulatory problems, and repeated surgeries created overlapping sources of both structural and neuropathic pain. Her letters and diary entries describe the experience in vivid, agonizing detail, and her paintings served as a visual record of what she endured. Works like “The Broken Column” and “Without Hope” are direct depictions of her physical suffering.
Over the years, her dependence on pain medications and alcohol grew. By the end of her life, the combination of chronic pain, surgical failures, and the amputation had taken an enormous physical and psychological toll.
How She Died
Kahlo died on July 13, 1954, at the age of 47. Her death certificate listed the cause as a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in the lungs. No autopsy was performed, however, and the circumstances remain uncertain. Her psychiatrist signed the certificate, and later research by biographer Martha Zamora raised the possibility that Kahlo died from a drug overdose, either accidental or intentional. Her final diary entry, written days before her death, has been interpreted by some as a farewell, though its meaning is debated.
What is not debated is the sheer volume of what her body endured: polio, a near-fatal accident, a possible congenital spinal defect, repeated miscarriages, more than 30 surgeries by some counts, and an amputation. Kahlo channeled that suffering into roughly 200 paintings, about a third of them self-portraits, creating one of the most viscerally personal bodies of work in art history.