Prior to the jab, I worked in an office full-time and as a part-time personal trainer and yoga instructor. My life was all about health and fitness and I had no health problems whatsoever.
I didn’t want the jab from Day One, but my employer mandated it. I went against my gut instinct and got the Pfizer jab at 7.30pm on the 9th of September 2021 (left arm). My arms had pins and needles within five minutes and my left arm muscles twitched. Initially, I thought I was paranoid and overthinking it.
I went home and put myself to bed. When I lay down, I noticed my heart racing madly, so I called a friend because I thought I was having a heart attack. I was awake most of the night and by the morning, the muscle twitches had become full body tremors.
At this stage, I was in complete denial that anything like this could happen to me, even though I felt like I’d just run a marathon and my legs were giving way under me. I left for work. My body weakened as the day progressed. By the time I got home, I was seriously questioning whether the jab was responsible for my symptoms. I called the jab-reaction hotline. They told me it was normal and I might be having a mild reaction that should just go away in a few days. I took some Panadol and Nurofen that night and went to bed early. I was exhausted and feverish.
I didn’t get much sleep that night and woke up the next day with extreme brain fog and numbness on the right side of my face. I got up and made breakfast and then my tongue went numb when I took my first mouthful. I freaked. My partner drove me straight to the hospital and on arrival I said straight up that I was having a reaction to the Pfizer jab.
The triage nurses said nothing, but they took notes. I waited two-to-three hours before I saw a doctor and he told me it was all stress related. He kept asking me if I was hesitant to get the jab and I sensed he wanted me to say yes. That way, he could frame me as an anti-vaxxer. Despite this, he ran an ECG, and I was discharged when it came back all clear. He said I had suffered a mild side effect and it would disappear in a few weeks. I went home.
The next day, the stabbing heart pains began and I could not string a sentence together. I avoided the hospital because I had been gaslit the previous day. I took a few days off work and rested as much as possible. Three days later, I returned to the Emergency department. They did bloods and an ECG. The results were all clear, and they discharged me even though I was begging the doctors to do more tests. They continued to gaslight me and sent me home empty handed. I was disgusted by this treatment. I felt defeated and wanted to cry myself to sleep. I did not want to return to the hospital ever again. As the days passed, I would wake up with a new symptom. It was like it was travelling around in my body and the symptoms were worsening.
On the 23rd of November, I was at work and the chest pains were so excruciating that I went home, When I got home, I called the ambulance on the off-chance they would take me more seriously. The ambulance turned up and they gave me morphine and took me to the hospital. I saw a doctor quickly. Again, they did bloods, an ECG, and took a chest X-ray, which all came back fine. In tears, I begged them to do an MRI on my heart. I wanted them to check for pericarditis, but they sent me home. On the discharge sheet, they wrote that I “agreed that the best option going forward was to see her GP” which I didn’t say at all. I was in pain, asking for immediate treatment, and for them to admit me. They basically threw me out in the gutter while I was still vomiting in a brown paper bag.
I threw up all the way home and all night long. I passed out in my bed. I spent the entire next day in bed and then I just adapted to my symptoms for the next few months. I was trying to go to work as much as I could with my condition, but I was taking at least one day off a week just to keep my head above water.
I had given up on the conventional medical system and started to look elsewhere. I saw a kinesiologist and a naturopath who had me on a long list of supplements and a clean, vegan, gluten-free diet. I noticed improvements when I began hyperbaric oxygen therapy twice week. After 10 sessions, I went from 10 percent to 80 percent functioning on a good day. At this stage, I had also figured out what was triggering my symptoms and I gave up exercise, coffee, and alcohol.
I saw an immunologist in April. He was amazing. He believed me because he had already seen others with the same thing. He was shocked that no more tests had been ordered for me and he sent me off for bloods (auto-immune panel), a brain and spinal cord MRI, and an X-ray of my hands and ankles. The blood tests revealed low iron and were positive for auto immune disease. The X-rays came back clear, and the MRI showed a very rare condition called syringomyelia—a condition where a cyst forms within the spinal cord and blocks the flow of spinal fluid. The blockage causes inflammation of the spinal cord, which can be responsible for neurological symptoms. This explained all the numbness and weakness from my waist down.
I received an iron infusion and hydroxychloroquine. I’ve taken the hydroxychloroquine for two months now, and I can definitely say I’m improving. I’m at about 95 percent of my old self on a good day. But every now and then, I get severe joint and heart pain, to the point I can’t open my hands. I get stabbing pains all around my body, especially in my chest. Sometimes, the numbness in my face and weakness in my legs return, but less frequently—the flare-ups last 24 hours rather than 48 hours now.
I have learned not to let doctors push me around. Many doctors are now speaking up and want to help people like me.