Age: 86.0
Sex: F
Vaccine: COVID19
Symptoms: Arthritis, Body temperature increased, Diarrhoea, Eye irritation, Fatigue
Clinical narrative: This is a spontaneous report from a contactable consumer (patient). An 86-year-old female patient received first dose of BNT162B2 (lot number: EW0191) on 29May2021 (at age of 86-year-old) on left arm at single dose for COVID-19 immunization. Medical history included ongoing Asthma, ongoing degenerative osteoarthritis, ongoing Stent, COVID-19 from 15Jan2021, diarrhea. Concomitant medications included paracetamol (TYLENOL) 500 mg tablet for pain. The patient previously took Plavix from unspecified date and ongoing. Caller states she is calling about the immunization, says she got it last Saturday in the afternoon (39May2021). She felt alright on Saturday, but from Sunday (30May2021) on, she began to have problems. Caller states she has advanced, degenerative osteoarthritis, and says it has been storming this week. Caller states she has been in terrible pain, says she usually doesn't complain, and has been living with pain for years. Caller says she has to be pretty bad to complain. Sunday was really miserable with the arthritis. Caller says she is telling Pfizer not because she expects Pfizer to do anything with it, but says maybe she can help someone else who calls in because obviously she survived and the pain has gotten better through the week. Caller says Monday was another bad day, and she finally just had to give up and leave everything where it was and just go in the bed because she was hurting so bad. She clarifies she had to give up, says she tried to stay up but had to go back to bed because of the pain. Caller states her symptoms were an elevated temperature, which was a low grade one and still has it today, and she had GI symptoms. Caller states she and her grandson were running parallel, says they were both exposed at the same time, and both came down at the same day, and their symptoms were the same except her grandson does not have arthritis. Caller states they had a low grade temp, GI problems where they were not exactly nauseated, but it was kind of like a hunt. Some things went in their stomach and her stomach felt a little better with food in it, and then the problem was the diarrhea. Her and her grandson both had diarrhea and both slept quite a lot. Caller states she slept the clock around a couple of days. Caller stated both her and her grandson were hazy, mentally. The caller states she was surprised because her grandson is a very sharp young man, and he was sort of numb. When attempting to verify the details above and if her grandson also received the vaccine at the same time she did, the caller clarifies she is confusing things. She was talking about when they both had the COVID virus about the 15Jan. Caller says they were both exposed and came down with it the same day, says they ran parallel for 3-4 weeks. Caller confirms she is the only calling about herself today having received the vaccine. Caller states she is about 140 lbs, says she hasn't been very active lately. Caller states she received her vaccine at noon, says she was supposed to be there at 11, got lost getting there, waited in line, and then was ready at noon. Caller states they made her wait awhile longer because of her reactions to medications, says she waited a half of an hour. Caller states because felt it was wise for her to take the COVID-19 vaccine in lieu of her medical history with asthma, a stent, things like that. Caller says the doctors said it was wise for her to take it even though she had had the virus. She trusts , and has been with the doctor for 30 years, says she started with him when he first started his practice, says she trusts him, he's excellent, so when he said she should take it, she said ok. Caller states she didn't want to. Causality: Caller states she is inclined to think pain is related to the vaccine, but she is not going to say positively it was related, but it certainly is a coincidence. Caller states what she felt was that whatever was in the vaccine sort of irritated the irritation in her back and hips and leg and everything. Caller says they had some stormy weather this week and that always makes arthritis worse, but something caused the low grade fever. Caller states she is kind of assuming it's the COVID-19 vaccine. To be honest, she is kind of scared of the second dose so that's why she changed her appointment until the day after Father's day. Father's day will be the first time to see her entire family since the virus. Caller says her second dose was scheduled for the day before Father's day, but after the week she has had, she's going to get the immunization afterwards so she gets to see everybody. Caller then states she does feel the low-grade fever, and pain she was feeling, and the GI upset, were related to the vaccine. The GI upset was kind of a milder version of what she had when she had the virus. Caller states both she and her grandson had the GI upset when they had the virus. Caller says he wouldn't eat for awhile, but she got him to eat what she was eating because she figured out what her stomach would tolerate. Her and her grandson both had diarrhea and that was the bothersome part of it. After the vaccine, the caller did a lot of sleeping, says sleeping didn't last as long with the vaccine as it did with the virus. Caller says it was just a feeling of tiredness and she felt kind of blah. She really felt kind of stupid, it was hard to think- she doesn't know whether it was because she slept so much or what.  Caller states she does not take strong pain medications for her arthritis because she has a stent and is on Plavix 24/7. She was told two years ago there is an incidence of internal bleeding for people who take arthritis medication and those who have a stent and are on a blood thinner 24/7. Caller states she was given the option of either taking a chance or not to take the pain medication. Caller says she didn't take the chance and opted not to take the pain medication. Caller says she only takes Tylenol extra strength, she does not use anything else. Caller says it can't be a pain medication that made her sleepy and stuff. Terrible pain: Caller states that one day, she just gave up and went to bed because she hurt so bad. She is not sure she would say the pain is disabling. The pain began on Sunday. She was a mess when she woke up. She clarifies she might have been up through the night to go to the bathroom and was miserable. Sunday was miserable, and Monday was a miserable day. Elevated temperature: Caller states fever began in the night, says she can't remember whether it was Sunday night or during the day on Sunday, says she's not exactly sure when. When probed for the seriousness, she said the significance might be due to the immunization. She confirms the fever is getting better, she felt better yesterday. Caller says today her eyes are burning. She took her temperature earlier and it was up, and her temperature is still up. Caller states because she takes Tylenol morning and evening, before she goes to bed, says it helps the pain somewhat. Caller says the first part of the week, Monday and Tuesday, the Tylenol might have taken the edge off. Extra Strength Tylenol: 500 tablets per bottle, 500 mg per tablet. Caller states the NDC:3014256190. Caller says she doesn't see a lot number, but there is a number underneath the expiration date: 9EE2582B.Exp: Feb 2021. Caller states the pain today is about the same that it always is, says she's pretty much in pain all the time, says it's something she has to live with. Caller states about the only time she is pain free is when she's in bed and has relaxed and taken a dose of Tylenol and it has taken effect. Caller states after she gets up in the morning and starts moving around, she starts having pain. Sometimes she has pain early in the morning, depends on what she does, like run the sweeper or when she's getting groceries. Caller states getting her groceries are one of the worst things, and she will have more pain the next morning. GI upset symptoms: Caller says she's pretty sure it started Sunday or just right away after that. Caller says it's a strange feeling, it's kind of a queasy, hungry feeling, it's a weird feeling. Caller says she puts a little food down there and it helps. Caller says she's been eating a lot of crackers, wheat thins, and ginger snaps. Caller says she has eaten and is pretty comfortable, says she would say it's getting better. Caller states she thinks in general, she is getting better- it's not perfect, but she is getting better. Caller states the reason she called is, for instance, her daughter in law, the mother of her grandson, was tending to think his symptoms from the virus were psychological and so forth. Her daughter in law is sort of that way, and she thinks everybody's else pain is psychological but hers. Caller states she came to her grandson's defense and fixed him up three care packages over a month with food that her stomach would tolerate- like crackers, ginger snaps, powdered chicken noodle soup, not canned, and oddly enough canned green beans, just plain old green beans, nothing on them- she didn't even have to warm them. Caller says her stomach tolerated them. Also, baked beans helped, she needed protein in there, says she tolerated baked beans and so did her grandson. Caller can't say everything she put in the care package, but tea was one thing, and another thing was cocoa. Caller says she got a generic mix. She mentions she tried some others, but they were not that good which was also because her taste doesn't enjoy food. Caller states this cocoa was good and was the generic brand. She gave her grandson a couple of cans of that because she drank that every evening when she took her medicine and ate crackers with her medicine before bed, and it was kind of soothing to her stomach. She knows it sounds weird, but it worked. Her GI upset she would consider medically significant because there was definitely a tie up. She explains it wasn't disabling and she doesn't consider it serious. She explains it was annoying, especially when she had the diarrhea. Unable to determine if caller was referring to vaccine symptoms or virus symptoms. Tiredness: She states she would consider the tiredness medically significant because she would sit down and she would get sleepy and then she did all this sleeping. Caller states it wasn't serious. She states the whole thing about this virus is kind of annoying because it was just bad enough it kept her from functioning normally and kept her feeling kind of lousy. Caller states she is feeling better, says it's improving. Hard to think: Caller states she would also consider this medically significant. She wouldn't have driven, says she wasn't sharp enough to drive or do anything important. Caller states today she is a little tired, but her temperature is up- it all goes in together. Attempted to clarify symptoms of the vaccine with caller. Caller states one thing she wants to tell Pfizer about her grandson is about the mental fog. The caller and her son were very afraid her grandson had that because her grandson was just a blob sitting there. He has been depressed because his parents are in a custody battle, so she doesn't know what part that played in it. Caller says she was concerned about him. He is 15 and he is very intelligent, but his grades went to Ds and Fs. Caller says her son got ahold of the high school counselor and the mother wouldn't do anything about it. The high school counselor got in on it, her son got on it, then they got someone got on it. Caller says they got her grandson through the work he was behind on, says he was behind for the whole thing. His mother didn't encourage him to do any school work. Maybe it wouldn't have done any good, maybe he was too far gone to do any work. Caller says they were concerned about the mental fog. She says her grandson is coming out of that and becoming his old self again. Caller says he is very intelligent and inquisitive, and he was just a blob for a long time. Medications: Caller stated she has been taking Plavix since 2008. She clarifies she started taking the Plavix because of her stent. She was on brand Plavix for a while and at one point she was switched to generic and she is on the generic 24/7. Tried to confirm with caller the generic name, but the call disconnected. Outbound call,was placed on 04Jun2021 at 3:24pm and was unsuccessful. Placed second outbound call, on 04Jun2021 at 3:25pm and was unsuccessful. The outcome of the events was unknown. The causality was reported as related. The seriousness was reported as medically significant.