I’m 30 years old, from Italy. I’ve been in Australia for the last eight to nine years. I work full-time and have always been incredibly active and healthy. I train about three times per week and I have never had any health problems before.
I got the vaccine because I have not seen my family in three years and to see them, I needed to be fully vaccinated. I didn’t want it and I didn’t need it for work, it just came down to me needing the green tick.
I got the Novavax vaccine on the 17th of February, 2022. It just felt like someone punched my arm. It wasn’t until exactly 24 hours later when I started to feel mild chest pain and trouble breathing. I had extreme fatigue. I couldn’t even keep my eyes open towards the evening. The heavy brain fog and confusion I was experiencing caused me to be very forgetful, to the point of forgetting what I was doing while I was doing it.
At 2:30am I woke up suddenly gasping for breath with a 9-out-of-10 continuous chest pain. It felt like someone was sitting on my chest around my heart area. It’s hard to explain because I have never experienced anything like this before. My hands also felt unusually hot, so I got out of bed and took myself to the hospital.
On arrival they took me in quite quickly. I mentioned the vaccine and they didn’t dismiss me, they asked me many questions but didn’t admit straight up that it was from the vaccine. They did bloods, ECG and an x-ray on my heart and lungs. All the tests came back clear and they said I was fine and to go back home. They did however say on the discharge papers ‘chest pain post-Novavax, inflammation post-vaccine’, and told me to come back if the pain increased or became worse.
I went back home and with a lot of research, I bought all the supplements under the sun to help detox my body. I stopped taking Panadol and took Nurofen instead, and I started to feel a bit better. I was experiencing some new symptoms at this stage, I had swollen lymph nodes and the left upper side of my body was visually swollen, my left breast and my ovaries were very sore.
I went to the GP and was referred for a stress test echo and a pelvis scan. I told him that I thought it was because of the vaccine and he said it was impossible.
For the next four days my symptoms persisted until the heart palpitations became constant and were keeping me up. I couldn’t sleep and was worried, so I took myself back to the hospital. They gave me the same tests other than the x-ray, and all tests came back clear once again. I was told that I was fine to go home, and to come back if it gets worse.
Six days later I had the stress test and I’m currently waiting on the results. On the seventh day I had the pelvis scan. The results came back saying that I had a 6cm cyst inside my ovaries. I’ve since been referred to a gynaecologist to further investigate.
This brings me to the current day. I’m now monitoring my heart and still experiencing symptoms of palpitations, fatigue and mild chest pains. I feel like I’m improving and I know people experience more severe injuries than myself, but I just want to let people know what is happening so they can make an informed decision.