Age: 55.0
Sex: F
Vaccine: COVID19
Symptoms: Gastrooesophageal reflux disease, Headache, Injection site swelling, Nausea, Neuralgia
Clinical narrative: I started feeling the sense of buzzing in my body about 45 minutes after the injection (as with the first round, it was in my left arm).  This buzzing sensation was a bit less than half the strength of the reaction I experienced the first time I had the shot.  Within about an hour and a half, this buzzing ascended to the top of the left side of my head and flowered into a headache that remained on that side.  At this point, I had waves of cold chills.  By about four hours, the headache became quite painful.  Freezing chills accompanied the intensifying headache.  This would alternate with brief periods of my body temperature abruptly becoming relatively neutral but then my eyelids at the lash line, the tip of my nose, the columella, my philtrum, the left aspect of my mentalis muscle, and the ganglion of my trigeminal nerve (both sub-surface and the skin over the area in front of my left ear) burned.  It felt like I had acid burning my skin on the surface and the muscle underneath (or the cartilage, in the instance of my nose and eyelids), burned in a different, yet equally painful, manner.  The ganglion of my trigeminal nerve was quite painful.   At this same time, I suddenly developed GERD like I have never experienced in my life. From the middle of my sternum to the back of my throat in my mouth, it felt like my tissues had been doused in oily acid. I then became nauseous.  I have never experienced nausea like this before.  I could not eat or drink anything.  Even just rinsing my mouth and spitting water out made me retch so hard that I felt like I'd either vomit up my own stomach or give myself a prolapsed rectum.  This was painful.   At intervals, my the tendons surrounding the joint of my distal and proximal phalanges of my right thumb would hurt at an excruciating level of pain. This would last about a minute. Then the pain went to my right extensor policis bravis and again, for about a minute, it was excruciating.  Then my extensor carpus radialis longus muscle burned (right arm) in this manner.  Next, the pain moved to a scar on the back of my hip that includes my gluteus maximus and the lumbosacral junction on the left.  About a minute of agony and then it moved to my IT band (left side) near the knee.  Then it moved to my right side adductor magnus near the knee.  The pattern seemed to be that I was utterly freezing and then it would abruptly stop, at which point my face would burn, as described above, and the circular pattern of extreme pain would occur.  Then I'd go back to freezing.  The nausea and headache and GERD did not abate at any time.  At four in the morning I woke up and my left eyelid was halfway open and halfway shut and I could not move it.  My cheekbone felt numb and my eyebrow was frozen in place.  Because I was able to easily swear in both English and Spanish, I decided that I was not having a stroke but, instead, incipient Bell's palsy or other similar.  I massaged around my eye and cheekbone and temple.  Eventually, after considerable dedicated massage,  I could open and close my eye again.  My nose, philtrum, columella and chin burned and ached during this entire process.  I cried from pain and fear and my tears from my left eye fell oily and thicker than normal.  My headache had not abated, not did the freezing chills, during this period.  I was still extremely nauseous.    I was nauseous and weak and in considerable pain until Saturday morning.  I woke up Saturday morning with dried blood smeared across my face and when I cleaned myself up, I discovered that the juncture of my philtrum and columella had split open in the night while I was asleep.  The split crossed the juncture and went into the corners of my nostrils. I was very thirsty all day on Saturday and had blurred vision for most of the day.  I saw floaters in my left eye.  My scalp started to burn and my hair follicles hurt.  My left ear developed tinnitus and I would experience vertigo when I laid down and turned in bed.  I was nauseous and exhausted and in moderate pain for about four days.  My hair started to fall out by the handful, especially on my left side, and my hair follicles hurt and burned for about a week. For roughly ten days following the second shot, I became nauseated if I ate quickly.  I experienced vertigo when turning my head to the left during these same ten days. The ganglion my trigeminal nerve painfully burned and continued to hurt rather a lot for about two weeks.  My shot arm (left arm) swelled and the skin burned at the two week mark; this lasted about 12 or so hours (a full day).  Over one month after the second shot, I am still experiencing:  1). Floaters in my left eye;  2). Tinnitus and reduced hearing in my left ear (sounds are slightly muffled in my left ear); 3). Intermittent burning of my trigeminal nerve on the left and my temple area just in front of my ear swells slightly when this happens; the mentalis muscle on my chin on the left side has not stopped burning since day one of the second Moderna shot and it hurts; 4). My nostril and columella/philtrum juncture on the left side burns and hurts when I am tired; 5). My scalp continues to burn at intervals and I am still losing hair, mostly on the left side, although that seems to be improving daily; 6).  My injection arm occasionally feels like the skin is burning and then it swells slightly. When this happens, I get a headache and then become extremely anxious or profoundly sad.  As soon as it stops burning, I feel normal again, as if a light switch has been turned off on these emotions;  7).  I never had but the occasional tension headache in the past and now I have them daily on the left side of my head.  Although this seems to be abating at its own pace, the daily headaches are painful and disconcerting.