Mary Regan
Tagged with: Muscle or Joint Pain,
What was your life like before you received the COVID-19 vaccine?
I was very active, I went to the gym frequently kayaked 13 miles down the cheap river, walked my dogs 2 to 3 miles every day. I had lots of energy. I slept well and enjoyed my life.
Describe the symptoms and the timeline of the reaction.
Within a month of having the first vaccine I’ve developed shoulders by pain in my right shoulder which I’ve had before and was diagnosed as degenerative disc in my neck. What was different was that by the end of April after I had the second vaccine I had acute pain in both shoulders and neuropathy in my hands and upper arms and feet. I started to have difficulty walking, and also with urination and bowel movements. I had a brain fog and difficulty sleeping. And I also had joint pain in my knees and my ankles, which I’ve never had before primarily on the left side.
Describe the solutions that helped your symptoms
I have had two surgeries on my neck and two on my lumbar spine. Nothing has really helped in that regard. However, recently they put me on Plaquenil 200mgs OD and that stopped the pain in my shoulders although it hasn’t done a lot to resolve the issue with gate on neuropathy in my hands and feet. At one point in time I had an echocardiogram because I had tachycardia, and the echo suggested that I had left ventricular hypokinesia. I subsequently had a cardiac MRI. That suggested that my heart was fine although I do still have a problem with tachycardia. It’s mainly the pain though and my shoulders in my hips that bothers me most now because it stops me from sleeping. I eat an extraordinarily healthy diet, but I can’t exercise because I’m too unstable on my feet. I do have a standup desk that I work at though and I have a treadmill that I’ve started using again that I hope will really help.
Which solutions were not helpful?
Definitely the Plaquenil has helped. They also put me on a course of dexamethasone at one pair of time which was incredible. My symptoms resolved, almost instantly. I have also been on prednisone, but I did not find that helpful. I feel like if I could exercise it would really help so I pulled my desk treadmill out again and I’m going to try that. The problem is I have to hold onto my desk but I walk because I’m so unsteady and so I’m afraid that I might slip. I’m going to try it anyway. The cardiac meds do control the tachycardia but I absolutely hate taking them. I’ve also brought my blood pressure back within normal limits.
What would you like others to know?
There is definitely a delay between having the vaccine, and then the onset of symptoms, and also the symptoms themselves very widely. I would like people to start routinely asking when they develop the sudden onset of diffuse symptoms when did the onset of current relationship to either having the vaccine or the booster. This vaccine is not safe and in some of us it causes profound symptoms. It’s like your whole physiology fails. I’d like people to start making a connection between the mRNA vaccines and this breakdown in the body function.
