I haven’t felt confident enough to share this on my usual social media, so thought I’d post it here and get it off my chest. I hope you all don’t mind.
29th March I had my first Astra Zeneca covid vaccine in the UK. A usual fit and healthy 21 year old girl, that worked out 5 times a week. I was finishing my degree at the time and had all the usual flu type symptoms post vaccine which went away within a few days.
All was well until my next vaccine…
June 14th, precisely 12 weeks to the day, I had my second dose of the Astra Zeneca vaccine. Now aged 22, I had finished university and just started out at my first job.
Immediately after the vaccine my mouth was flooded with a bloody, metallic taste - like I had bitten my tongue and again experienced flu-like symptoms which lasted a few days. As the days went on I was feeling more and more lethargic and my breathing and heart rate kept spiking.
July 6th rolls around and I wake up gasping for air, heart rate through the roof, sweating uncontrollably and very unsteady on my feet. 111 was phoned and an ambulance was sent straight to my house. I had a temperature of 38.9 C, pulse rate of 126, high blood pressure and a newly developed heart murmur which had shown up on the ECG. I was then taken for my first ride in an ambulance to hospital.
My stay in hospital lasted a week, I had lots of different scans and tests which they told me all came back negative - result! However, I couldn’t get my heart rate down below 120 and still felt rubbish overall. Having just started out in my new job, I went right back to work and was again starting to feel rougher and rougher each day.
I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, almost like someone was trying to break out, I was extremely dizzy and would black out when standing. It would take me 10 mins to climb the stairs as my heart just couldn’t take it. Going from a resting heart rate of 55 to 120 is a big jump and I wasn’t too fond of it.
July 29th, I was sat at my desk at work and feeling extremely rough. I was finally persuaded by my colleagues to phone 111 and again, an ambulance was sent, this time to work.
I spent another few days in hospital where the doctors looked over my tests again. This time they found a huge amount of blood and fluid in the sack around my heart, which was somehow missed the first time. I was diagnosed with pericarditis and PoTs. I was prescribed colchicine (an aggressive anti inflammatory) in hope it would remove my symptoms. Having reached the end of my prescription, I wasn’t feeling any better and was struggling with my heart.
New symptoms have developed over the 2 months since having my vaccine:
* Hair falling out in handfuls
* Bruising extremely easily
* Shooting/ stabbing and aching pains across chest
* Inability to handle hot or cold foods
I am now waiting for a referral to a cardiology specialist and we will go from there, I was told I may have to be on beta-blockers. My life has been turned upside down since having the vaccine, I am certainly not an anti-vaxxer, like many of us, I just wanted life to go back to normal.
I never usually share anything like this, if you could please reblog and raise awareness, it would honestly mean the world to me 💖
yousharknotpass
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