Age: 48.0
Sex: F
Vaccine: COVID19
Symptoms: Post-acute COVID-19 syndrome, Reading disorder, SARS-CoV-2 test negative, Sleep disorder, Tinnitus
Clinical narrative: I started feeling tingly shooting sensations on the right side of my face, ear, and traveled to the right side of my head after about 10 minutes of receiving the vaccine. When my husband was driving me home, I started feeling dizzy and felt like I was intoxicated and sea sick. After I got home I was extremely nauseous, dizzy and felt even more intoxicated. I laid down and rested for a while and kept feeling worse. I took a shower that evening and lost my balance and stumbled and fell down.  The next morning I felt dizzy and nauseous and I called the doctor at the Express Care where I received the vaccine. They told me if I started feeling like I was having a heart attack or pass out to go to the emergency room I rested the whole weekend and felt dizzy, balance issues, nauseous and had no appetite.  My head would feel hot inside but not to the touch. I woke up on Monday and my right arm and shoulder felt heavy and partially numb. The same arm that received the vaccine. I still had the dizziness, balance issues, nausea.  My ears were also ringing. I was feeling shooting tingly sensations starting at my shoulder down my right arm. My appetite was basically nonexistent. My husband had to force me to eat and cook bland food. I initially  missed two weeks of work after the vaccine. My heart started beating heavy and my apple watch gave me notifications that my heart rate was too low. It got down to 40 beats per minute. My oxygen saturation level also got on the low side and I felt like I could hardly breathe. I could not sleep through the night and I ended up going to cardiac emergency room on August 2nd or 3rd. They ran tests and checked for myocarditis which was negative at that time. The ER doctor told me that I had a prolonged vaccine reaction. I felt like I had symptoms of covid. I was coughing, I had chills, nausea, loss of smell and taste. My legs started shaking uncontrollably at night.  I went back to Express Care and they tested my for covid which was negative and could not figure out what was going on.  I started feeling pressure in my head and tingling and pain in my right side of my face around August 16th. The pressure got worse as the week went on and the right side of my head around my temple area started hurting constantly. It felt like someone hit me on the head with a baseball bat. I also started feeling what we figured out to be brain fog. I went to my family doctor ( at Facility. He had me go do bloodwork. I went back to Express Care on August 22nd with the head pressure and pain and numbness and shooting sensations in my right shoulder/arm and I had the tingling sensations shooting through the right side of my face. The pain was so excruciating that I was in tears. They advised me to go to the ER because they were worried about a possible stroke. My husband drove me to ER downtown the evening of August 22nd 2021. They did blood tests and I had a CAT scan of my brain. They gave me IV medications for the head pain and medication for the extreme nausea. The ER doctor advised me to go the a neurologist for further testing. The next day I felt my vision had changed and my hearing was sometimes fading out. The brain fog was intense. My brain also started feeling like it was on fire. The fire in the brain feeling has not subsided since. It happens every day 24 hours a day. The ER doctor advised me to go to a neurologist to follow up and do more testing. I went to Neurological Clinic a day later. Dr. ordered MRI of my brain and neck. Dr. told me that I had a reaction to the vaccine. He had patients that had similar symptoms but had had covid (which is now known as long covid). So essentially I had suffered long covid from the vaccine. (which was not known at that time) My health deteriorated from there. I have not worked full time since. I was out of work from September through December of 2021. My family doctor told me he could not help me and referred me to specialty doctors. I have been going to every type of specialty doctor and alternative medicine doctors and providers for relief since then. One of my doctors told me I had neural inflammation due to vaccine because of the symptoms of brain fog, dizziness and brain on fire that I had not ever had previous to the vaccine. My quality of life has been significantly altered. I could not follow simple instructions to heat a microwave lunch for my son. I could not cook anything. I could not even read correctly. When I would try to read a book or article, my brain would guide my eyes to read from right to left. I could not remember what I had just read. I would read over and over again the same paragraph and the information would just not stick in my head. I could not do simple math. I could not form sentences. I felt like I had dementia. I still have a hard time processing and absorbing information and reading. My short term memory is almost non existent. I had to try hard to remember how to take a shower and dress myself and I could not work due to the tremendous brain fog and dizziness. I could not drive. I had to live with my mother in law and have her and my sister in law take care of me during the day since my husband had to work. My marriage has suffered and my son has suffered from this adverse event. I ended up having extreme depression from dealing with this horrible life altering reality. I have spent thousands of dollars trying to get better and had to have help from my family since I could not work and have been working reduced hours. I experience extreme fatigue daily and brain fog on a daily basis. I had no health issue to speak of before I received the vaccine. My daily symptoms now are almost too much to list.  I went from being a healthy 48 year old mother and full time paralegal of 20 years who could do many things at one time and pretty much remember everything to all the sudden not being able to remember anything short term and feeling like I had dementia and have not been able to work full time since. Everyday feels like I am living a nightmare that keeps repeating.