Kimberly Lafave
What was your life like before you received the COVID-19 vaccine?
Prior to getting the vaccine, I was a healthy, very active mother of five who enjoyed going to the gym and working out daily. I did not have any major underlying health conditions that inhibited me from doing any activities. I was looking forward to life getting back to normal after the pandemic
Describe the symptoms and the timeline of the reaction.
I got the first vaccine on 1/6/2021. 4.5 hours later, I got Reynauds Phenomenon for the first time in my life. I sought counsel from my PCP and a rheumatologist who told me to go ahead and get the second vaccine (the benefits outweighs the risk). I got the 2nd vaccine 2/3/2021. About a week later, I started breaking out in a rash that quickly spread all over my upper torso, I lost my ability to walk for a few weeks, lost muscle strength.
My symptoms were: easily fatigued, has herpes like rashes on her face and different painful, rashes appearing on her body, adry mouth, red eyes, muscle weakness, muscle twitching, numbness in various body parts in different times of the day, vertigo, blurred vision, joint pain, brain fog, heart palpitations, chest pain, EKG readings of RBBB
Loss of control of bladder
Trigeminal nerve pain
Altitude sickness
Lightheadedness
Fatigue
Heat intolerance
Nausea
Shortness of breath
Get winded climbing stairs & doing normal activities
Stomach cramping,
Dry mouth
Dry eyes
Tremors
Blurred vision
Reyanuds hands and feet.
Describe the solutions that helped your symptoms
The solution that helped me get back to work and gain some mobility is practicing yoga daily. I like to exercise and be active, and yoga is the only thing that has helped me. Increasing my fluid intake and making sure I get adequate rest is important also.
Which solutions were not helpful?
To me, it was more stressful trying to seek answers from so many different doctors and they all did not believe me. That seemed to increase my stress level and make things worse. Anything that increased my stress level seemed to make my symtpoms worse.
What would you like others to know?
I still do not have a diagnosis and I may never get one. Every test I have had has come out normal. I wish that I would have done more research prior to getting the vaccine so I would have known that it was not really studied before being administered to me, and that doctors would not know specifically how to treat any adverse effects I had. I’ve never had an adverse reaction to a vaccine, and unfortunately my body reacted badly to one that was still in trial phases.
