My husband is 41 years old. He does jujitsu and is a powerlifter. He wanted to get vaccinated to be able to travel with me to New York to see family. He took the first Pfizer vaccine in June of 2021. He felt fine, just a slightly increased heart rate. It wasn’t until his second vaccination in August of 2021 that he experienced more severe symptoms.
Several days after taking the second vaccine he woke up to a rapid heartbeat and high blood pressure. I suggested he go to the ER. We were very worried. When he went to the ER they did a blood pressure reading and because that was so high, they did blood work. They did two ECGs and two blood panels. The wrote him a prescription to go get a holter monitor. They only do the holter monitoring for 24 hours and he got it at 8 am and returned it at 8 am the next day. After a couple of days his results came back as normal although he was still experiencing discomfort and a fast heartbeat.
Three weeks to a month later was when the rash broke out. The rash started on his legs and moved around his body. Every time he took an antihistamine it would calm down and when the drugs wore off it would flare up in a whole other place. The rashes are very painful, hot to the touch ad have a burning sensation. He went back to the ER where they said it could be caused by laundry detergent and prescribed him Benadryl and Claratyne. He mentioned both times he’d recently had the COVID vaccine and both the doctors dismissed it.
His blood pressure has come down a bit and we have made an effort to eat better and stip it up with supplements. I have only had one dose of the vaccine and my doctors have been very good about writing notes regarding my adverse reactions. My husband’s adverse reactions have not been taken seriously because he has a history of mental health issues. They have attributed ost of his symptoms to anxiety. I don’t have a past with mental health, so my doctors were more open to this being a vaccine-related reaction.
On December 12 we went to New York to visit family over Christmas. Unfortunately we all got COVID. I had a headache and a cough, our six year old daughter just had a runny nose and congestion, but my husband who had been double-vaccinated, had a fever and chills that turned into terrible sinus and chest pain. He had a hard time breathing and we almost went to the ER. He still feels it in his chest after he does his jujitsu classes. He still has pain, trouble breathing and has wheezing. He has what seems to be ‘long COVID’ with fatigue and brain fog. And because he has labored breathing, he can’t work out as much and therefore has put on weight. He’s super frustrated he can’t do the activities he used to do to the best of his ability. He wants people to know that there wasn’t a point to this. He and I will not be going back for anymore COVID vaccines.
Everybody’s body is different and everyone is going to react differently to different medications. He was in bed for a full week with COVID whereas we had less symptoms. Its confusing and frustrating. I seems like this last variant came through as a sinus infection. It is interesting to note that everyone in our family had minor symptoms except those who were double vaccinated. They had the worst case of COVID. I felt worse on this round of COVID that I did pre-vaccine when my daughter brought it home from preschool back in 2020. What’s most disappointing is that they don’t consider underlying conditions, allergies and previous medical history. This is not a one-size-fits-all drug and it is reckless to consider it so.