Sex: F
Vaccine: PNC13
Symptoms: Inflammation, Injected limb mobility decreased, Injection site pain, Laboratory test abnormal, Mobility decreased
Clinical narrative: her left arm was really sore and really hurt/got the same pain on the other arm/pain in her upper legs; she could not even lift her arms; muscles were inflamed; This is a spontaneous report from a contactable consumer (patient). A 74-year-old female patient received pneumococcal 13-val conj vac (dipht crm197 protein) (PREVNAR 13), via an unspecified route of administration in left arm on an unspecified date of 2020 at single dose for getting older/pneumonia vaccine. Medical history included ongoing osteoporosis. There were no concomitant medications. The patient went in to get the pneumonia vaccine because she was older and the doctor wanted her to get one. She reported had a terrible reaction that has changed her life. Then she was on prednisone for who knows how long. The reason for the call was that she was looking for any information on this reaction occurring and to find out a list of ingredients for the product. She was not sure the date the product was administered but thought the shot was given in either the latter part of Aug2020 or early Sep2020. A couple hours later her left arm was really sore and really hurt but she thought it was like a tenuis shot, how that hurts. Then she got the same pain on the other arm where she got no shot and the pain began to spread throughout both biceps. The next day, there was pain in her upper legs. The pain was there when she woke up every morning and the pain was worse every day. It got to the point she could not even lift her arms. She took paracetamol (TYLENOL), trying this for a couple day and it would made it, after about 1.5 hours, where she could get out of bed and move her arms. She finally called the doctor and was told that the doctor would give her prednisone but wanted her to get lab work first. The weekend came and she went to urgent care where she was given a methylprednisolone (MEDROL DOSEPAK). The caller informed her doctor who instructed her that was fine but she was to go to the ER and get labs done. After the lab work came back, she was told it was ok to get the prednisone and use it. Within 7 hours of starting the product, the pain was better and by day 6 the pain was gone so she stopped the product. Then 2 weeks later the pain came back and got worse. She went to a rheumatologist who put her back on the prednisone, she was taking 15mg. The doctor tried to taper her off and she got down to 1 prednisone pill. When she went to a new rheumatologist she was told to stop in 3 days, the prednisone but after stopping, within 3 days the pain came back. Now she is living on prednisone and can't function without it. she had been going through test to figure out what was causing this but it all started with this pneumonia vaccine, she was fine before. The caller was looking for information on the ingredients and if this information was available to the public. She had done research online and found other people have had issues. The caller explained she had no information on these patients specifically nor did she have and product details such as NDC, Lot, or Expiry for product used. The problem was that she had severe osteoporosis and prednisone makes bones more brittle. That was why she seeing a rheumatologist, for the osteoporosis. The prednisone is in a pharmacy bottle. Unknown number on the bottle: 54502. She had a lot of test done and they were still coming in, for inflammation since that was what the doctors are saying is the problem. She got some last week and some were coming in. The doctors explained to her that her muscles were inflamed. She was supposed to see the rheumatologist at the end of the week for the interpretation of what he thought was going on. The caller also stated she hadn't gotten a flu shot. The outcome of 'she could not even lift her arms' was recovered, while the other events were not recovered.  No follow-up attempts are needed. No further information is expected.