Age: 55.0
Sex: F
Vaccine: COVID19
Symptoms: Trigeminal nerve disorder
Clinical narrative: I got the vaccination and they had me go out to the waiting room for 15 minutes to see if I had any reactions. About 5 minutes in, I experienced a numbness on the top left side of my mouth outside towards the midline under the nose and to the left. I notified the nurse and they took me back to monitor me to see how things were doing. I didn't have any swelling of my tongue and the numbness continued to spread to the lower left side of my mouth. They gave me Benadryl to see if that would affect what was occurring and to stop any potential swelling. At that point, they were taking my BP and said it was a little high, but it wasn't too bad, maybe the stress of the reaction. Stayed there for probably 30-45 minutes and the Benadryl didn't do too much. Still having symptoms but wasn't progressing so I went home. Later that night, upper right side of my mouth on the outside was experiencing the numbness also. I was tired, arm was sore and I had the numbness that I was experiencing. It felt like a numbing shot during dental work. I went to bed early and got up the next day, the numbness was gone and wasn't having any other issues. My plan was to get my 2nd vaccine and showed up for the 2nd dose. They told me I needed to get cleared by an allergist since I had a reaction to the first. I was referred to an allergist by my PCP.  I had allergy testing and when I had allergy testing done with the pricks, I actually had the same reaction with numbness on the outside of my mouth on left lower side that time, but according to the tests, the allergist said that I don't have allergies. I had the reaction and she said it wasn't allergies but wasn't sure what it was. She recommended to see a neurologist, so I talked to my PCP and referred me to the neurologist who did a brain MRI and talked me through my history and making sure I wasn't having neurological issues. He cleared me as well so I went back to my PCP to talk about getting the 2nd vaccine and we made the decision to get the flu shot to see if I had another reaction. Got a flu shot in January 2022 and I had the same reaction with numbness on the left lower side of my mouth within 5 minutes. By the end of that day, I slept and woke up the next day and it was gone. Spoke to my PCP again and she recommended the 2nd dose again. Got the 2nd vaccine in February of 2022, and it was the same reaction with numbness on outside of mouth and followed up with PCP and she said as long as I wasn't having additional problems, I would be fine. A week later, I started experiencing numbness on the outside of left lower side of mouth so I went to see PCP again, and we discussed a few things that we could do and she started me on a supplement to see if that would help. I took the supplement which is alpha lipoic acid 600mg. I took that for 2 weeks 2 tabs daily and dropped it to 1 tab for one week and that seemed to help resolve the symptoms. For whatever reason I had the same reaction with the first vaccine, the flu vaccine and the 2nd dose, and even a week later after with no injection, experienced numbness. When the numbness came back a week after the 2nd vaccine, the numbness did not dissipate. Continued on once it started. When I talked to my PCP, it seemed to be the trigeminal nerve that seemed to be affected.