I have been questioning whether or not I should send in my story. I am not anti-vaccines but am also not pro-vaccines. I don’t know what the answer is, and I don’t want to scare people. I also feel people need to know that these ‘rare adverse reactions’ aren’t rare at all. Everyday, fit and healthy people are suffering because they are doing what they have been told to do. I’ve had people try and tell me it’s okay and that I am far better off having this reaction to the jab, rather than getting COVID.
They tell me this is only temporary. It’s so frustrating.
Background – I am a 33-year-old schoolteacher and mumma to a busy two and a half year old boy. I never wanted to get the vaccine. I got it so I could see my nan, so I could travel across the border and hopefully one day back overseas to see my family and friends again. Everyone kept telling me to get it. I didn’t want to do it. I was anxious. I was nervous.
I even cried both times. I nearly decided not to get the second one and kept putting it off. I put it off until it was mandated to keep my job and I was told I had done the ‘right thing’ by the nurses.
Two days after my second vaccination, on 6th December 2021, I started getting weird chest pains that would come and go. I tried to ignore them for a few more days, but it got so bad that I knew something wasn’t right.
On 11th December 2021, I woke up and felt like I was having a heart attack. My heart was racing and I was so scared. I had severe chest pain that was penetrating through to my back and pins and needles all down my arms and legs. My mouth was dry and I could feel my heart beating through my chest. I was shaky and everything was ‘hazy’. I was cold but sweating at the same time.
The next morning it was all still there. I was so worried and scared. I decided to go to my local private hospital because I didn’t want to have to wait around in the public system. Following an ECG, heart ultrasound and blood tests, my D-dimer results came back slightly elevated. They decided to do a chest CT scan, to check for clots. I was relieved, but confused, when the result was normal. They told me they thought it could be an inflammatory response to the vaccine, but also said they couldn’t be 100% sure. I questioned them about how and when it would go away and why I was still in so much pain. They said the pain was likely from inflammation around my heart and chest, but they acted so causal about it like, it wasn’t a big deal. They said to go home, rest, take Panadol and Nurofen and to come back if I needed to, but to give it a few days.
I took pain killers for three days, but they didn’t help at all. On 15th December 2021, I couldn’t take it anymore. It felt like it was getting worse since my second jab ten days earlier. I’d had eight days of chest pains which had now extended all the way down my arm. I was feeling exhausted, foggy, tingly, and just weird in general. It’s so hard to put it into words. I knew something wasn’t right and it wasn’t getting any better.
This time I went to a different hospital in the public system. I had more blood tests and an ECG. Everything looked normal. The nurse who checked me in, said it sounded a lot like I was having anxiety and was very dismissive. The doctor said it was a common side effect that they had been seeing. He prescribed me steroids for five days, saying it should help, but that the pains could last for up to four weeks. He said that it was ‘normal’, there was nothing more they could do and that I’d just have to wait it out.
So yesterday, 16th December 2021, I went to see my regular GP, who I have a great long relationship with and trust 100%. I had seen him previously, after the first vaccination. This was about two random occasions of heart palpitations and pins and needles. At that time I hadn’t made a connection with the vaccine. He mentioned it, but also said he wasn’t sure, and to go ahead and get the second one. I had more tests and he finally diagnosed me with pericarditis, which is what I have felt it was in my gut all along. He also said that he didn’t know why the hospitals were not diagnosing it and weren’t linking it to the vaccine. He said the steroids I’d been prescribed by the hospital wouldn’t do anything for pericarditis. He said he had seen quite a few patients with this and there was usually an improvement after a couple of weeks. I am booked in to go back in a week, if there is no improvement and then he will send me off to a cardiologist.
Today is 27th December 2021. I am still having the chest pains. I couldn’t sleep last night because my heart was racing. It’s day 12 of living like this, pretending it’s ‘normal’ to have constant chest pains and losing my breath after walking a short distance. I’m trying to stay positive, that it’s going to start getting better, but at the same time I can barely lift my two-year-old son. My heart randomly races and then drops back down to normal. I’ve been told I can’t exercise, not even take the dog for a walk. I’m meant to be on school holidays from work, but I’ve barely left the house. After reading other stories, I feel like maybe I am a lucky one, as I could be far worse off. But if this is so common, why is nobody talking about it?
It’s baffling!