Age: 62.0
Sex: F
Vaccine: COVID19, COVID19
Symptoms: Impaired work ability, Memory impairment, Paraesthesia, Prothrombin time normal, SARS-CoV-2 antibody test negative
Clinical narrative: I have neurological issues since the shot. I have trouble with concentration, problem solving activities, reading, listening in conversation, and fast-paced or complicated computer work. What happens is that I feel my brain not keeping up, lagging, drifting. It's like waves of exhaustion. Things have improved a lot for me, however there are still times when I struggle. I had high blood pressure that wouldn't settle down after the shot. I ham now on blood pressure medication and a statin for high cholesterol. I also have hearing loss and vertigo. Vertigo is every day when I go to bed. I had pain in my ears off and on since the shot. According to the audiologist, the hearing impairment is moderate but presents difficulty with particular consonants during normal levels of conversation and hearing aids are recommended. There was one test that was given during the exam where I became dizzy. The audiologist said she had never seen the result before. My plan is to have another hearing test in late July in case something might improve. The ear pain has subsided, with a sharp pain in the ear now and again, but rarely these days. Not experiencing strange sounds (crunching, or piercing high notes) like before. Although hearing loss has been verified, I believe that the problems I have had with conversation involve both hearing loss and cognition. There is problem solving involved with engaging conversation. I get dizzy, like waves of exhaustion in my mind when I'm having trouble with conversation. Thankfully this problem is much improved but it does still happen. I will now paste in a log I was keeping in case the dates, etc., are helpful.   March 19, 2021 Since learning yesterday that my antibody test result for Covid-19 is negative, I want to document what I have experienced since receiving the Pfizer vaccine on March 8th, 2021.   I am a 62-year-old female who is healthy, although somewhat overweight who has had uncontrolled high blood pressure off and on in the past. I also have osteoarthritis and a history of migraines. I experienced neurological symptoms and other symptoms after receiving the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine for Covid-19 on March 8th. These included dizziness, flushes of heat, chills, vertigo, elevated blood pressure, tingling on the right side of my face, cloudiness in cognition, zingy nerve sensations all across my brain and waves of "exhaustion" (like waves in the mind, like being adrift) when using the computer (typing, proofing typed work, reading dense documents, working with excel files, working with email)and difficulty with conversation (marked difficulty with listening), and trouble with reading.  After receiving the vaccine at around 10:45 in the morning at a pharmacy, I soon felt dizzy and quite warm during the waiting period. I removed my jacket, scarf and baseball cap; someone nearby fetched me a water bottle. After 10 minutes passed, I knew I shouldn't leave at the 15-minute mark because making my way to the window to pick up the vaccine card was not possible right then. I stayed for 30, informed the pharmacist that I was very hot and dizzy. She said she felt it was my immune response. I went to my car and cooled off there with the air conditioner. Eventually, after about 15 more minutes, I drove myself a short distance home.   Back at home it was lunch time and I had some trouble putting the lunch together. I was confused. I put something in the microwave, forgot what it was, heard the dinging and checked. It was a bowl of soup I forgot I was warming. It was only 2 inches of broth/sauce, though, and the other ingredients that go in it were in front of me still cold on the wood board. At that point, I was startled that I was having this confusion, I knew my mind was not working as normal but figured it would pass with rest, and thought that my vaccine and immune response were probably overwhelming my mind. I went to bed and felt my mind was very zingy with nerve twinges, like when you can feel nerve activity/healing going on in your body, and I slept for about three hours. I was groggy upon awakening.  I knew I had a high blood pressure issue that wasn't abating after the vaccine. Admittedly I was amped up when I went to the pharmacy get the vaccine and I'm pretty sure I had elevated blood pressure when I received the vaccine. I had tossed and turned, hadn't slept well the night before. I was scared and worried. My body's immune system is what I would call overactive and I was afraid of the response. (Not sure overactive is the right word, but my immune system protects me fiercely. I would say my immune response is intense.) Although I was afraid to get the vaccine, I wanted the benefits and knew I needed the protection.   The next thing that became apparent was a problem with conversation. I found I could not do the normal back and forth of talking and listening with my husband. I could make words and sentences, short ones preferably, not involved, but listening was almost impossible. Longer sentences I made were coming out a little slower I noticed, but not by much; they were more considered, I would say. My blood pressure would shoot up during conversation. I would get sensations in my head and feel dizzy and things would start fogging up in there somehow. I felt exhausted by conversation. I would want to run away. And for the next few days, that is exactly what I did. I stayed upstairs in my room, working remotely for my job as best I could, and not talking or listening to anyone.   I bought a blood pressure monitor and began monitoring on March 10th. Here is a table of results.  March 10 6:16 pm 150/63   80   7:10 pm 150/88   74   10:15 pm 130/68   70 After sleep March 11 11:30 am 152/84   70  March 12 7:00 am 154/79   65   9:30 am 176/78   80 On phone with advice nurse. Couldn't get appt. was told to go to Urgent Care March 12 Spent time in Urgent Care and ER. Blood pressure remained elevated.  Was told to follow up with primary care doctor for blood pressure, to make decision on meds. March 13 9:00 am 152/72   72   3:00 pm 151/75   84   5:30 pm 140/72   88   9:00 pm 145/82   74  March 14 7:00 am 150/79   66   9:30 am 157/98   79   3:38 pm 146/66   85   8:35 pm 156/72   73  March 15 7:25 am 151/78   67   10:15 am 157/70   62   1:45 pm 156/70   73   3:30 pm 178/78   96 At doctor visit. Was prescribed Cozaar 12.5 mg/day March 16 Midnight 145/72   71   6:30 am 141/80   66   8:00 am 148/82   91   3:30 pm 140/78   86   8:13 pm 134/71   73  March 17 7:30 am 128/76   67   6:00 pm 132/75   76  March 18 10:30 am 130/90   83 Ate at 10:00 am  8:45 pm 137/79   78  March 19 10:00 am 133/83   89    Over the course of this experience, I have been flushing with heat, beginning at the pharmacy. Perhaps pure high blood pressure effects, I don't know those things. I want to mention it because I do not normally flush with heat like that. On the evenings of March 13th and 14th, I had strong chills at bedtime, literally vibrated into a down coat, slept in it and many blankets. On March 12th, when moving in and out, etc., of the CT scanner at the ER, I had vertigo. I had no idea when it was over, that it had stopped, until they helped me up. I have had vertigo for about 4 nights upon going to sleep. I may have had more vertigo during this experience, but with the dizzy, I'm not sure. I began a few days ago to want very cold temperatures at night and I left my slider and my window open for sleep and enjoyed it during a 40-degree night. When I wash my hair, I'm sitting in a warm bath but I rinse my head with cold water. It feels great. And right, somehow. Warm water is not the thing for me right now, head-wise.   Neurological issues continue. I have to read somewhat slower. Reading something complex is several reads, even if just a few sentences. I have stopped on the novel I was reading. I have to type somewhat slower. Typing takes a lot out of me, much more so than usual; I have zings in my head all over sometimes when I'm writing on the computer, when I'm re-reading my writing, working, emailing, and just in general when I try to do too much on the computer. I find excel files to be overwhelming with the data everywhere and me zipping around them for my work. Luckily, I don't have an excel project going on at the moment. Right now, I would say my computer time in general has to be broken up with breaks. I never had to take breaks before when I was involved/trying to meet a deadline/ working on something. I take short walks in nature, go outside on my patio to enjoy the birds, play with my dog, when the computer has been too much for me.   Finally, I must tell you that I have a lot going on in my mind at this point in my life. I am grieving. I am peri-menopausal. My mother (82) fell and hurt herself in November and had a light stroke about three weeks ago.    April 7, 2021 As of now, I am still having neurological issues but things are much better than before. I am able to write and read and do my work on the computer for the most part. If I try to speed along, I might need to take a break, but mostly I am able to work. When it comes to excel sheets with a lot of data to manage and move around, I'm not there yet. It's overwhelming.   I am left with trouble with listening as my major complaint. What happens when I have to focus intently on listening is that I feel my brain sort of quake or drift. I have to walk away from what I'm doing to calm down this ill feeling.   April 11, 2021 I had a hard time with the quake/drift last night. I was awake at 2:30 am. (This is a fairly normal thing for me to be up in the night writing, reading or whatever; it's something I do quite a bit.) I tried to do a couple of sentences on the computer and I noticed right away that it wasn't going as it should. The two days prior, I had no drift and was feeling so hopeful. Last night I felt like I did back when this problem was at its worst. I had to stop. I had a lot of vertigo. I propped myself up on the bed at various degrees to find a good spot. I had a hard time. I meditated and apparently fell asleep; I awoke to being in a seated position, head hanging. I then tried to lay down and sleep, nope, more vertigo. I tried to meditate again and woke up the same way again. Well, finally it subsided. This morning I was not myself in terms of cognition, thinking. I was just kind of off. Maybe I was worried, this setback made me worry about my future. An awful feeling.   Some History I've gone over a few things in my mind that I want to share. One is that early on in the Pandemic, I believe I was exposed to the virus via a co-worker who had been very sick with an infection and returned to work with a terrible cough. She had had an interaction with a woman affiliated. I cannot confirm if my co-worker had Covid-19 but she told me she suspected she may and that she was considering getting tested.   In March of 2020, I had a terrible rash, red eyes and lids and red toes. The rash was like swaths of raised, red areas that felt hot and itchy like hivesthey were large patches, these huge areas on my body, like continents, that migrated/moved across my body. My groin was affected as were my armpits. They were hot and itchy. In the records you will find a phone appointment where I discussed my extensive rash. There is also a phone appointment where I discussed a very sore throat that would not relent. I believe I may have had MIS-A and my lymph glands (tonsils?) in my throat were very painful and swollen. I continued to have problems with my throat for a year. Sometimes I would have broth rather than food, it was so hard to swallow. Other times it was not as bad. The soreness, difficulty swallowing was constant but to varying degrees.   After I had the Pfizer shot, I felt the glands in my throat finally release. That was a relief to me. I felt some strange sensations on the day of the Pfizer shot. I felt a lot of activity in my brain that was very frightening. A lot of activity, electricity, nerves. I felt a sharp shard (felt like a tiny spike or piece of glass, miniscule) pass through one eye, and then the other; through one ear, and then the other; through one breast, and then the other. Both knees, both shoulders and my wrist where I had carpal tunnel surgery flared some although that passed fairly quickly.   The glands in my throat (my tonsils?) are doing so much better. This is a relief because it was a difficult problem for which I had no solution. I was gargling with mouthwash, with salt water, and using cough drops. Sometimes, with the mask-wearing in the supermarket, it was very difficult to breathe. My plan was to get vaccinated and then ask for a referral to get the throat scoped to make sure I didn't have a serious problem there.  I have had pain in my ears off and on since the shot. I wonder if the problem I am having with focus on the language of others (listening/conversation) has to do with something that happened in my ears. I attended a meeting for my work on March 29th and I was unable to manage. I was, of course, trying to listen carefully to the speakers but it was overwhelming for me. My mind was not able to deal with listening, concentrating, paying attention. I sat silent and still, not commenting and left at the end of 35 minutes.  April 20, 2021 I was able to have a conversation on the phone with my mother for over an hour. This was the first time since March 8th.  I felt good about it. There were other positives last week with my mind and cognition and how I was doing with my work. But, yesterday, April 19th, I found myself almost unable to work effectively most of the day. I tried this and that and my mind was just drifting. It's a very unsettling feeling, like vertigo inside and I find I cannot accomplish much because I cannot trust myself and have to check and re-check things. (I was working on paying some speakers we had to compensate for their time.) The day proceeded like this until I gave up around 4:30. An awful feeling to be ineffective. Today, I had a visit from my grandchildren and so I was very little on the computer. Just here and there. I find my mind still was rocking around some.   Later, in the nighttime I believe the brain itself was actually shaking. I am not sure, since it was night and I was unable to quite figure out what the sensation was. I was scared, since it was something I had not experienced before. I have also noticed in recent days that my head will "itch", not really itch, but it is tingly on the inside and I find I touch my head on the outside as if it were an itch I could scratch. It isn't unpleasant like an itch, it's more like when your hair movesbut the feeling is inside.   I am troubled about my future at work. My work is mentally demanding. I work with numbers, schedules of classes, dataplus students and professors. I help with translation, I edit and proof academic writing. My work also requires strong interpersonal skills. Listening difficulty is a major thing when it comes to meetings with colleagues.