Peter

I’m 22 years old. Prior to the jab, I was fit, healthy, and active. I’m a music producer and very outgoing, so I was always at events. I danced and partied but rarely drank alcohol and never took drugs.

As a child, I had a minor heart condition called pulmonary regurgitation for which I had annual check-ups. I was under the care of a paediatric cardiologist until the age of 18, but now I see a general cardiologist. She strongly encouraged me to get the jab and also stressed to my parents that I should have it. This led to my entire family exhorting me to get jabbed.

My intuition said something didn’t feel right. Cardiac side-effects concerned me because I already have a heart condition. Meanwhile, the social and media pressure mounted. I read the TGA’s safety advice—as well as other official safety advice—and thought I might as well just get it done. I booked an appointment for my first Pfizer jab on the 25th of September, 2021.

I was injected in the left arm and sat in the waiting room for the obligatory 15 minutes. Within five minutes, my vision blurred, and I felt a sudden, crushing pain around my heart. It was so extreme that I returned to the doctor’s room. He told me I was probably anxious and should go home and drink some tea. I was unhappy with this advice, but I followed his instructions and hoped the symptoms would subside.

As I lay in bed that evening, my chest pain intensified. I could barely breathe and my chest felt crushed. At about 3am, I asked Mum to drive me to the hospital.
On arrival at the Box Hill Hospital Emergency Department, I described my symptoms and told staff I’d had the jab the previous day. They took my bloods to check my troponin levels, but everything came back normal. The doctor suggested that it was impossible for the jab to affect my body that quickly and it was more likely just anxiety. I was discharged with instructions to go home and take it easy.

My symptoms worsened over the next few days, and I had to take time off work. I was unable to sleep on my back or my left side because the chest pain was excruciating and I couldn’t breathe. My lungs felt like they were drowning. I developed constant aching pain in the back of my calves and I struggled to walk. The brain fog was so bad that I felt drunk.
On the 28th of September, I saw the doctor who had jabbed me. I limped into his office because the calf pain was now severe. I explained my symptoms and he said that people cannot react to a vaccine this quickly, and so my symptoms couldn’t possibly be related. He said my symptoms were in my head and that I had pulled a muscle. I asked how I could have pulled a muscle after days of bedrest, but he reiterated that it couldn’t be the jab and that I shouldn’t worry about it. He said to go home and rest.

I was still concerned, so the next day I saw a different doctor to get an echocardiogram referral. Later that night, I was sitting at home when suddenly my heart felt like it was beating out of my chest with sharp pain. I thought I was having a heart attack and called an ambulance. The ambulance took me back to Box Hill Hospital, where I was left in a waiting room for four hours (by now it was the early hours of the 30th of September). During this time, someone came to take my bloods again. I waited, clutching my chest, with no one checking on me. I felt scared and angry. No one seemed to care. Eventually, I approached the front desk and asked how long it would take before I could see a doctor. I was told it would be another four hours or so. By this time, my chest pain had reduced from severe to moderate. Exhausted, I went home.

In the weeks following my second hospital visit, I experienced the same symptoms (chest pains, difficulty breathing, calf pain, and brain fog) as well as body bruising, especially around the jab site. I also had stomach and bladder pain and disturbance, and focusing on fine details such as screen fonts was difficult.

I had the echocardiogram on the 11th of October, and the results came back clear. As I was still experiencing chest pain and the other symptoms described previously, I was not ready to abandon the search for what was wrong with me.

I booked in to see my cardiologist. I emailed requesting an appointment and included a brief explanation of my symptoms and hospital visits. The receptionist emailed back on behalf of my cardiologist to say that an appointment was unnecessary. I insisted on an appointment. She agreed, but only if I sent her my hospital blood test results, which delayed my appointment. Due to Covid restrictions, I was unable to have a face-to-face appointment, so we had to communicate on Zoom. The appointment lasted an hour. I had to explain everything to a doctor first. The doctor then went offline to speak with my cardiologist for a few minutes, and then my cardiologist joined the Zoom call for the last five minutes of my appointment. She told me that my blood tests were clear, that my symptoms were most likely caused by stress and anxiety, and that I have no reason not to proceed with the second jab.

By late October, the leg tremors and weakness started. I developed full body twitches and shaking, which happened mostly during the evenings. I also had a fortnight of constant tooth pain and woke up gasping for air at night. I booked into a new GP to get a referral to a neurologist whom I saw in early November. He suspected I might have transverse myelitis, so he arranged a spinal and brain MRI, both of which came back clear. He asked if I had considered taking anti-depressants as my symptoms might be anxiety-related. He handed me a prescription for anti-depressants and I left, frustrated. I threw the prescription in the bin. Several months later, another neurologist told me that the spinal MRI showed two spinal cysts. To this day, I have no idea why the first neurologist failed to mention the cysts.

On the 5th of November, I saw another cardiologist (I’ll call him Cardiologist #2). By this time, my calf pain had lessened, but the chest pain was constant. He suggested a stress echo test to investigate the breathlessness and chest pain. The test came back clear. He recommended a drug called Endep, which is an anti-depressant that is supposed to alleviate muscle pain. I asked if we could do more tests first because I wanted to rule out heart damage. I’d heard stories on social media about people having a cardiac MRI that revealed myocarditis or pericarditis, and I wanted to ensure we had investigated every possibility. He said there was no need for further tests and that I should just try the drug for a month.

A friend of the family works in a hospital and told us about a cardiologist who had treated a person for jab-induced pericarditis. I got the cardiologist’s details and saw him in mid-January, 2022 (I will call him Cardiologist #3). I asked if he would treat my chest pain the same way that he treated the person our family friend had told me about. He gave me a prescription for colchicine and booked me in for an echo test and a two-week-long Holter monitor test.

On the 18th of January, 2022, I went to the doctor who gave me the first jab to request a medical exemption for the second jab. I took all my hospital reports, test results, and medical records. He told me it was impossible to give me an exemption, and he refused to release his notes from my visits to him on the 25th and 28th of September, 2021. I kept following up about the notes and he called me eventually. He admitted that he hadn’t recorded any notes about my reaction on the 25th of September, and all he had written on the 28th of September was a throwaway line about possibly straining a muscle. Obviously, I never saw him again.

On the 24th of January, I had a follow-up appointment with Cardiologist #2 and decided to just go anyway in spite of my previous bad experience. I took the elevator to his office, clutching my chest and feeling awful all the way up. I told him I was feeling worse and asked again if he could run more tests. He refused and talked about when I would get my next jab. He said that Israel had zero reported cases of myocarditis or pericarditis with the fourth Covid jab, the implication being that it gets safer the more doses you take. He told me that he once thought he had cancer and did lots of tests. But it turned out he never had cancer and was just stressed about his medical exams. He said that anxiety is called ‘the great mimicker.’ He also told me that his son had chest pain after the jab, but he had told him to push through and keep training because it was just anxiety, and the son got better. (I recorded this conversation).

I took colchicine for a month, but reduced my dose by half because I would get so breathless after taking it. I saw Cardiologist #3 again to receive my echo and Holter-monitor test results. He told me they came back clear and that I should just decide for myself whether to keep taking colchicine or not. As it wasn’t helping to alleviate any of my symptoms, I stopped taking it. The cardiologist made no diagnosis and didn’t have any suggestions for further investigation. When my test results were emailed to me after the appointment, I saw the words ‘sinus tachycardia rhythm’ written as a note on the Holter-monitor test results. The cardiologist never mentioned this in our appointment.

My neurological symptoms were still causing me difficulty (twitching, gasping for air in the night, tremors), so I saw another neurologist for a second opinion on the 28th of February. He reviewed my spinal and brain MRI results and told me that they showed two spinal cysts; however, he couldn’t say whether they were related to my symptoms. He said that spinal operations are a last resort and that it was not worth removing the cysts. He suggested that my symptoms may be due to Functional Neurological Disorder, but he said there’s no treatment for it. I felt disheartened and pursued nothing further with this neurologist.

By this time, I was in a Facebook group for jab-injured people and was sure I had some kind of cardiac injury. I got a referral to a fourth cardiologist. Every time you see a new specialist, you must go to a GP to get a referral. This means you must keep explaining the situation over and over again. Some of my appointments were bulk billed, but a lot weren’t. I have spent over $5000 on specialist appointment tests since this all happened.

I saw Cardiologist #4 on the 11th of March, 2022. He told me that it was most likely that I had pericarditis caused by the jab. He also told me that he had diagnosed and treated 75 other people with similar conditions due to the jab. He organised tests, including another echocardiogram and a cardiac MRI. He put me on colchicine, but a lower dose this time. Again, it made me breathless and failed to improve my symptoms. I tried it for almost two months before giving up on it.

At the end of March, I got Covid. My symptoms flared-up massively and I ended up at Box Hill hospital with chest pain. They monitored my vitals and did a D-dimer test to check for blood clots. It came back positive (0.56), but they said that’s normal with a Covid infection. I was discharged a few hours later. The next day, I went to a different hospital. I was still frightened by the extreme chest pain, and I didn’t fully trust that the Box Hill staff had covered all bases. The second hospital was no better. They took some bloods and did another D-dimer test. They told me it was negative, but they wouldn’t show me the results and wouldn’t send me a copy of them after the visit. I had a chest X-ray and I asked for an echocardiogram because the chest pain was so severe. They refused to do the echo at first, but I refused to leave until they did it. The doctor tried to convince me to leave and called me “odd” for wanting to stay and get more tests. I mentioned I was likely jab injured and it was probably making my Covid symptoms worse, but the doctor told me it was entirely unrelated. They put a cannula in my hand, which they forgot to take out before I left. When I asked for help with my bag while the cannula was still in my hand, a nurse said, “Well, your arms still work, don’t they?” In the end, the tests all came back clear and I was discharged the same day with no advice or medication.

In early April, I had a review with my regular cardiologist. I told her about cardiologist #4’s suspicion that I had pericarditis. He also sent her an email to share the suspected diagnosis and to request a valve check-up. She said that the diagnosis and link to the jab were wrong. As my regular cardiologist, however, she usually runs yearly echocardiograms and Holter-monitor tests for me anyway, so we did the routine tests.

On the 23rd of June, she shared the test results with me and they were all clear again. She insisted that as these results were clear, I should get my second jab as soon as possible.

I had my cardiac MRI on the 15th of July. As I suspected, the results showed pericarditis and myocarditis. On the 9th of August, Cardiologist #4 made this an official diagnosis, which has now been documented as being caused by the jab. I am in disbelief that it took nine months and fourcardiologists to get anyone to run the appropriate diagnostic tests. I had to push and push and push to get this test done. Without a proper diagnosis, I was unable to get the right care or any compensation. It also has a huge emotional and mental impact to have a medical professional officially acknowledge the injury and to stop trying to push the next jab onto me.

Now that I finally have a cardiac diagnosis, all I want to focus on is recovery. I’m back on colchicine on the recommendation of Cardiologist #4, as well as another drug called Indomethacin. I don’t really know what to do next. The cardiologist told me that myocarditis affects you for life and can shorten your life expectancy, so I feel pretty down. The pericarditis is apparently easier to treat. My other symptoms also remain undiagnosed and untreated, so it just feels like I’m standing at the base of a mountain that I still have to climb. Eventually, I will investigate the Medicare injury claims scheme to help pay for all of my specialist appointments, but I just don’t have the energy to pursue this right now. People share their recovery experience in my Facebook jab-injured group, which helps a bit. I recently got Covid again and my symptoms worsened.

I feel like I’m going to cry as I say this, but that one jab ruined my life. The only time I have no pain is when I’m asleep. I can’t work. I can’t go out with friends because I can’t even keep up when they’re walking. I don’t know how I’m going to support myself or do normal things like work a job, buy a house, or go for a run. This has put strain on all of my relationships. My family has to support me. My girlfriend went from having a normal, healthy boyfriend to one that’s basically disabled. I lie in bed every night and wonder if I will ever not feel pain? It’s bleak. That’s all I can say.