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Vaccine Injury Testimonial

Joe Sacco

What was your life like before you received the COVID-19 vaccine?

Healthy. Very active. Runner. Played basketball. Now, I can't exercise or otherwise exert myself or I'll crash the next day and sometimes for the next several days. It's not just exercise intolerance. Any form of exertion. I used to be able to take my two kids, 12 and 8, to an amusement park and walk around for 8 hours. Now, the PEM from that the next day or two will be unbearable. It's also become difficult for me to continue coaching their soccer teams because I'll have major crash episodes following busy weekends when there are several games and/or tournaments. Usually the following Monday and Tuesday I'm very unproductive at work (at best) or else laying on the floor in my office (at worst).

Describe the symptoms and the timeline of the reaction.

My symptoms had a somewhat gradual onset. Which meant I didn't connect them to the vaccine for quite some time. A few days after the vaccine I woke up with this weird nervy pain in my right flank. Sometimes its pain, sometimes more numbness, sometimes it feels like there is Icy Hot under my skin. Parenthetically, it's gotten better just recently. Conjecture but I think it was dysbiosis-related. I just felt off the next couple of months. Started having paresthesias in legs. Numbness, tingling, electric shock-type sensations. Then episodes of feet "going cold" for no reason. Then further paresthesias in arms, back, face, tongue. December, periods of dizziness when standing. Unsteady gait. About 3 months after vaccine, symptoms peaked. January, urinary problems. Signaling issue. I feel like I have to pee but nothing. I used pee 5 times a day, now once or twice. February, severe GI dysmotility. Sexual dysfunction. Hair falling out of left leg. March, blurry vision. Problems scanning. Feeling like an ant is crawling around my temple. Waking up with numb hands and feet. No, not the one you slept on. All of them. April, severe dry eyes and dry mouth. Stopped sweating. I used to put on deodorant twice day, now not twice a week. May is when I started noticing the fatigue. Unrestful sleep. PEM. I think these were there all along. They just faded to the background with the other more blatant symptoms.

Describe the solutions that helped your symptoms

Gamechangers: LDN. Low-histamine diet. Mitochondrial support supplements (NAD+, D-Ribose, ALCAR, CoQ10, etc). Huperzine. Cold showers. Others: Anti-histamines. High dose Vitamin C. Turmeric. Vitamin D, R-ALA, Reservatrol, NAC, Quercetin, Magnesium, probiotics (ones that are low in histamine). B vitamins.

Which solutions were not helpful?

Exercise. Referrals. Taking a symptom-by-symptom approach as traditional medicine would have. This hurt me more than helped. Both health-wise and financially. I don't know what else. Pretty much anything else I tried not listed above.

What would you like others to know?

Not everyone has an immediate acute reaction. Sometimes it's very insidious. Which is hard because then you get doubted and gaslighted even more. And it becomes temporally difficult to prove that the vaccine was the culprit. Before finally finding a good doctor in Functional Medicine, doctors were not just unhelpful but kind of hostile towards me. I tried to ask a lot of questions and help them by explaining things that were helping and they didn't care. They threatened to ban me from emailing questions at the Cleveland Clinic.
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Details

  • Pfizer Vaccine:
    19 October 2021

  • Injury Date:

    22 October 2022

  • State/Region:

    OH

  • Country:

    US

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