Age: 29.0
Sex: F
Vaccine: COVID19
Symptoms: Peripheral swelling, Pruritus, Sensation of foreign body, Sleep disorder, Swelling of eyelid
Clinical narrative: On the evening of 12/16/2021, when I hopped into bed, I started having an insane itching spell on my scalp and the back of my neck/hairline. I was really confused because I had never experienced anything like that before. I was able to fall asleep, but when I woke up, the hives continued. I took a shower shortly after waking, thinking that maybe something in the bed had caused the irritation, but I was still itching after the shower. My ENTIRE body was covered in hives...hives absolutely everywhere. I have an autoimmune disorder (mixed connective tissue disease), so I called my rheumatologist begging for Prednisone, thinking that the problem was possibly related to my disease. My whole left forearm, wrists, and ankles were red hot and swollen. The 5mg Prednisone 3x/day did absolutely nothing for me, and I ended up in urgent care on 12/19. The doctor there prescribed 20mg Prednisone, to take qty 3 per day (60mg total, in the morning), as well as hydroxyzine to take as needed. At the time, I didn't have any trouble breathing, but I did have a persistent feeling of a pill being caught in my throat. (That sensation lasted a couple of days.) Since the 60mg of Prednisone and hydroxyzine didn't provide relief, the following day, I ended up at my rheumatologist's office for a steroid injection and bloodwork. My bloodwork showed elevated inflammatory markers. I was able to get into my dermatologist on 12/23, and he said he couldn't complete a biopsy of my skin while I was on Prednisone. I have follow-up appointments with my rheumatologist and dermatologist.  A few days after developing the hives, I noticed I was having trouble breathing. The wheezing starts in the early evening and continues on/off through the night. There have been nights and mornings that I have woken up gasping for air. When I told my rheumatologist about my breathing issues, she told me to contact my primary care doctor. When I tried to schedule an appointment with my primary, a nurse got on the line and told me to rush to the emergency room. I listened and did just that, only to be given an inhaler and more steroids...neither of which have proven to be extraordinarily beneficial. Hives appear all day, every single day. Sometimes the hives itch, and sometimes they don't. However, I have not gone one whole day without at least some intense itching/flare-ups. Often times, I can feel something of a "heat wave" come over my face, and I look in the mirror to see my face inflamed and marked up. My eyelids swell, my lips swell. My ears get hot. This morning, I took the last 5mg Prednisone my dermatologist prescribed to help me taper off the 20mg pills, and I am having an intense flare up right now. Last week, I started taking 5,000 IU Vitamin D, Vitamin C, and Magnesium/Calcium/Zinc tablets each morning, in case of any possible deficiencies. I saw my primary care doctor today, who prescribed Tagamet (at my request), but my pharmacy is out of stock. I will hopefully have the prescription filled tomorrow. My primary care doctor said I am not his first patient to develop hives after the vaccine.