Ben Migotto

I received my first COVID-19 vaccine on April 27, 2023. It was a Pfizer-BioNTech Comirnaty vaccine (Lot #: FX4343; Original Expiry Date: 2023-01-31; New Expiry Date: 2023-07-31). I received my first dose this late in the game due to a number of full-time research assistant job opportunities at academic hospitals and health centres in the Greater Toronto Area, Canada, where it is mandated to have a primary series of COVID-19 vaccine for external employee applicants. I am well versed in the literature on COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccine syndromes but I had a sudden wave of desperation in late April due to my financial struggles and I am living with my parents at the age of 29. I was able to maneuver around the Fall 2021 vaccine mandates at York University when I was a master’s student in the Graduate Program of Kinesiology and Health Science. I have since stopped working out and running as of May 23 due to my post-vaccine symptomatology and not wanting to further exacerbate my symptoms. Trying to treat myself and examining the research literature to see what is going on has taken a lot of time on of my daily life away from my research assistant duties and writing a study protocol manuscript based on my master's thesis.

• My symptoms started off with foot paresthesia (numbness, tingling and burning) on May 11th. These symptoms come and go but are not as frequent after I stopped working out my legs.
• The paresthesia symptoms then progressed to my hands on May 23 with a noticeable sudden-onset reduction in grip strength.
• Over the past few days I have lost a lot of strength in my quadriceps and it is a lot more difficult to perform squats with just my body weight and climb up a flight of stairs at home. It feels like my nerves are not firing as efficiently when squatting up or moving up the stairs.
• I observed a slight swelling of the right cervical lymph node and right arm pit lymph node on Monday. The cervical lymph node as decreased in size but the arm pit lymph node still has a slight visible increase in size.
• Over the past three days the burning sensations have progressed to my calves, quads, face, upper/lower back and glutes.
• For the past couple weeks, I have also experienced a weird, prolonged cramping of the muscles of my right arm that starts at the shoulder and ends at my hand. This past Thursday (June 1st) for example the right arm/hand cramp lasted for 3 hours.
• Over the past four days I have been experiencing fasciculations in various muscles of the lower quadrant (quadriceps, glutes) and my right deltoid (opposite arm that I received the vaccine).
• I have spoken to my family doctor, Dr. Tanya Sehgal, about these symptoms on two visits (most recent appointment May 30th). I went to the Emergency Room and Sub-acute department at Brampton Civic hospital, the latter of which I was sent to as a result of my intent to commit suicide due to my worsening symptoms. They performed blood work at the Emergency Department and Sub-acute department and the results were normal. At my request the sub-acute department performed a C reactive protein test as a biomarker of inflammation that came up normal as well.
• I am concerned that I am currently experiencing a progressive auto-immune neurological condition such as peripheral neuropathy or chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy. I have a referral for a nerve conduction study at the Department of Neurophysiology at the Brampton Civic Hospital but it will likely be a while before I receive an appointment.
• If the progression continues my family doctor recommended that I go to Emergency Room at Sunnybrook Health Science Centre or at Trillium Credit Valley and Mississauga Hospital sites.

Here is a list of vitamins/supplements that I am currently taking:
Morning
Vitamin D3 – 10,000 IU per day
Vitamin K2 MK-7 Forme – 100 mcg per day
Magnesium Bis-Glycinate – 400 mg per day
Zinc (Chelated) – 50 mg per day
Nattokinase (2 to 3 hours after breakfast) – started with 100 mg but now taking 200 mg
Lunch
Extra strength NAC – 1000 mg per day
Bromelain – 500 mg per twice per day
Natural Trans Resveratrol (Japanese Knotweed) – 600 mg per day
Afternoon Meal (4:00-5:30 pm)
Curcumin-Pro – 1200 mg per day
Naltrexone in 2 mg/ml suspension – just started taking 0.5 ml per day
Before Bed
Clonazepam to help me sleep – 0.5 mg
Nattokinase (2 to 3 hours after supper) – started with 100 mg but now taking 200 mg

My life experiences, personality traits and moral values influenced my responses throughout the COVID crisis and led me to develop new research interests. My journey through stages of grief benefited me in resisting the behavioural nudging techniques that were used to disseminate fear-based messages, enforce compliance with pandemic policies, and to encourage denigration and exclusion of dissenters. During this time I became more aware of my compassionate traits, including my ability to understand a person’s suffering and my desire to alleviate their distress. I want to apply these traits and my analytical research skills in assisting physicians and scientists in developing individualized, multi-drug treatment regimens and rehabilitation strategies for patients with COVID-19 injection syndromes and Long COVID sequalae. These patient cohorts are similar with heterogenous clinical presentations including cardiovascular complications, clotting disorders and coagulopathies, neurological disorders, reactivation of latent DNA viruses, new-onset autoimmune diseases, and menstrual irregularities among women. The medical gaslighting, if not outright abandonment, that many of these patients and their concerned family members continue to encounter has motivated me even more to pursue this research. Additionally, I want to contribute my skills to collaborative research projects that will focus on restoring integrity in the scientific research process by returning it to its core values of objectivity, transparency, and independence from the interests of pharmaceutical companies, corporations and government.

Unfortunately, I am not very compassionate towards myself and getting this vaccine out of desperation for expanding my job opportunities in Fall 2023 and Winter 2023/2024 is something that I am really beating myself up on (psychologically and physically) and I cannot forgive myself for what I willingly chose to do.