Age: 45.0
Sex: M
Vaccine: COVID19
Symptoms: Nausea, Ultrasound Doppler, Vertigo
Clinical narrative: On Tuesday, June 8th, I'm driving a car on the highway and a dizzy spell hits me hard with no warning. I got the car pulled off the side of the road but my world was spinning for 2-3 minutes. It scared me enough to go the ER an hour later where I had blood drawn, EKG, CT scan of brain, overnight monitoring, and an echocardiogram. All were normal, but over the course of the next week, I felt the full force of the following symptoms: lightheadedness to the point of almost fainting, brain fog, nausea, neck tightness, headaches, anxiety, and fatigue. I had so many lightheaded moments where I felt I would pass out. My life was affected because I couldn't do anything without feeling like I would pass out. Driving more than a mile is out of the question. Fortunately, I'm a school teacher and all this started on the 2nd day of summer vacation. I certainly would not be able to teach if school were in session. How bad was my brain fog?  I have kids who love to play board games like monopoly.  I play 5 or more times a week.  My brain fog prevented me from playing monopoly with him. It was too complicated for me to roll the dice, count the dice, move my piece the number of spaces, figure out money amounts, etc. . My family was really worried because they noticed how I couldn't think. I felt like a 90 year old man with dementia. As far as my lightheadedness, I never actually fainted, but there were many times I had the "sense of doom" feeling where I was going to die. I visited the ER again a week later and they did another EKG with normal readings again and ordered a holter monitor to be worn for 24 hours, which came back normal. When I finally got into my primary care physician on June 17th, he suspected something terminal, so he orders a brain MRA the very next day. That came back clean, so he orders me to see a neurologist. Once I received news that the brain MRA was normal, my anxiety went away for the most part--I was not going to die! The neurologist prescribed gabapentin 100 mg daily (which is anti-migraine/anti-seizure meds) and a carotid artery ultrasound, which came back clean.  (Notice a pattern?) Because of the neck tightness/pain/uncomfortability, I visited a chiropractor thinking neck alignment was off. Chiro realigned me but I didn't feel any better or worse.  I have had 2 visits at the chiropractor, specifically for the neck pain and seeking relief. Today, I am 6 weeks from the June 8th out-of-the-blue dizzy spell that changed my life. If I gave a percentage of how good I am today, I would give a 75%. During all this time, I've never had a fever and my blood pressure has been normal every time it's been taken. According to all these tests, I'm the healthiest man in the world--my heart, brain, bloodwork is all great. My episodes are less and less frequent, and I drove today for about 5 miles! Yay! I feel like there's light at the end of the tunnel. In the last week, I've been playing board games much better with less brain fog, but I have my moments with brain fog and lightheadedness. My neurologist and my primary care physician feel like there is no correlation to the vaccine, but the chiropractor I visited has said that he's treated multiple patients like me who are looking for relief from these symptoms in the past 4 months.