Age: 49.0
Sex: F
Vaccine: COVID19
Symptoms: Computerised tomogram normal, Dyspnoea, Salivary gland enlargement, Scan with contrast normal, X-ray normal
Clinical narrative: She got her vaccine, no typical reaction at all at first.  Then on 8/22/21 she was eating a home-grown tomato and all of a sudden out of nowhere her right parotid salivary gland started swelling up.  It swelled up from her ear all the way down.  She went to UC and went to the hospital.  She was scared that it was the COVID vaccine as it was less than a month after that and she had never had swelling before.  8/23/21 she had labs to rule out any allergies, and had none.  She went to Dr. on 8/25/21, and then on 9/28/21 for FU after medications and the swelling got better.  They told her that it was a coincidence, and had nothing to do with the COVID vaccine.  She got her 2nd vaccine on 11/7/21 because her grandchildren would not come and see her as she did not have her vaccine and was missing her family so much and then got the 2nd one and then things got worse.  She has been back and forth to the doctors and the hospital.  She hasn't had it happen in a while in her ears.  It has gotten so big that there are dimples in her right cheek to where she cannot eat.  Sometimes it will swell and it go down slowly after she eats a meal.  Then one time it got stuck and it would not go and it stayed swollen no matter what she did and could not eat anymore as it was swollen to the max and throbbing with horrible pain.  She now has another issue with it, and knows that she will be given antibiotics, steroids, massage and heating pads and they told her to eat little sore candies to help push it out.  She has had CT scans with contrast, x-rays and went to a dentist to look and they thought they showed something and she took the x-ray to her doctor and there was no salivary stone.  They told her there was nothing to do with the vaccine, but an ER nurse told her that there have been reports of swollen glands from the COVID vaccine, but every single time you come in for the swelling and it goes away, but this has been ongoing.  Dr. said he did not feel confident doing surgery as it is encompassed in a lot of nerve and it would cause scar tissue and would be a much harder operation.  If you touch one of the nerves in the face she could suffer paralysis.  He sent her to Dr. which her insurance would not accept it.  Dr. told her she would have the same problem for the rest of her life until the gland is removed, so she does not want to take risks with her face.  She had one bad episode on 7/3/2022, went to the doctors on 7/6/22, went to the ER on 7/7/22, and saw Dr. on 7/8/22.  Today she is going back to Dr. ENT today as she has something going on with her nose, unrelated to her other issue.  Since this happened and called the other doctor, Dr. and asked what insurance they took, she is getting a new insurance that starts in April so she can see the specialist to get the gland removed.   She went to UC for a 2nd opinion to see what was going on with her, which they did another CAT scan with contrast  and saw no stones.  They felt that it might be a bacterial infection and she disregarded that as she feels it was related to the vaccine.  She Googled if anybody was having issues with glands from the vaccine, and they do, but the doctors state that they do not know of anybody having issues with their glands.  All this happens on her right side, never on her left.  What she read in Google it says that the rare include peripheral facial paralysis, Bell's palsy or swelling of the facial areas.  It swells out, throbs at it's worse and it will swell up and then go backdown.  She cannot go out to eat when this is flaring as it is embarrassing and she is very worried about the surgery but feels that it has to be done.  Feels that the doctors should be aware of this and not act as if it doesn't happened when it does, and that  people should not get another shot if this happens with the one shot.  Her symptoms got worse after the 2nd vaccine, but it did not happen as soon as it did with the first one.  The swelling got so big after the 2nd shot and would not go down.  She has a video of her eating a peach where her face swelled due to that or eating ice cream.  She also sleeps on a heating pad.