Johnson & Johnson on 04/12/21 Lot #202A21A
Montgomery County, Maryland
Q: What was your life like before you got the vaccine?
Pretty ordinary life. Moderately active middle aged guy with lab/desk job. Did mostly biking for exercise - typically 50 to 75 miles per week. (Picture is from a six day 240 mile ride on the Katy trail with my brother a few years back.) Hypertension, treated with medication, was my only major health problem.
Q: What was your reaction, symptoms, & timeline?
On April 12, I got the J&J jab with complete (and deluded) self-confidence. I’d never had a bad reaction to any childhood vaccine, and most years I got the flu shot - also without any problems. So why would this be any different? During the first 36 hours post jab, I had a textbook flu like reaction - very intense, but otherwise by the numbers. But on April 18 - just six days later, things rapidly got weirder and more frightening. I haven’t felt completely normal since then.
It began with unusual leg pains, followed by extreme fatigue. The next day intense headaches and feelings of head pressure began. I didn’t know it for several more days, but I was already in hypertensive crisis. I’d had high blood pressure for many years, but it was very successfully treated with medication. That medication would no longer be sufficient. On Wednesday of that week (the 21st), I experienced the first paraesthesia- initially a cool burning or menthol-like sensation on both lower legs. (Later evolving into a subsurface sunburn feeling as it spread.)
For four days, I was in a very strange mental state of both denial and foreboding- simultaneously in complete disbelief and gathering panic. On the 22nd I made my first visit to primary care. My blood pressure, even on medication, was well into the red - just lying at rest. That wouldn’t be well controlled again for a couple of months and I changed medication multiple times. The “rare” clots due to thrombotic thrombocytopenia were in the news at that time, so everyone’s mind went there. But I had no obvious petechiae yet. The first blood test was drawn, though I would already be in the hospital before I knew the platelet results were normal.
The next day, the paraesthesia reached my face. It initially felt like a cold metallic dripping sensation on my left side. With head pounding and blood pressure in the red I’m thinking about possible stroke risk and head to the ER. Still in a fog of disbelief that this could possibly be happening, I drove myself to the hospital in a bit of a trance. (In retrospect, driving was poor judgement, but fortunately I did not lose consciousness and risk harm to anyone else.)
The ER staff immediately thought stroke upon hearing my symptoms and admitted me with surprising alacrity. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I breathed a sigh of relief on the way to the CT scan. After all, I was now in the hands of 21st century emergency medicine. Stroke or not, given how strange my entire body felt, surely all sorts of tests would scream out abnormal. Right?
That assumption was not correct. On a steady cadence - CT, EKG, echo, carotid ultrasound, multiple rounds of blood tests - all came back normal. Are you kidding me? How is it even possible that nothing is abnormal when my body feels so different? … Since the stroke evaluation was ultimately negative, I was discharged from the hospital the next day with a referral for follow up MRI. As the paraesthesia continued to spread and evolve, I next went to a neurologist. (Guillain-Barre was not yet in the news, but that was what I was starting to fear.) However, typical tests, including a nerve conduction study and MRI, all continued to show normal results.
In early May, I found my first online contact with a similar post vaccine experience, and then found a private social media group for JJ recipients. While most sources of information on the internet were not helpful to me, I discovered that social media, for all of its flaws, would be the only place where I would find any relevant information about vaccine reactions. There is an absolute refusal of conventional media to cover this subject. And right up to the present, the CDC will assure you that the only risk of the jab is that you might have a sore arm and feel tired for a couple of days.
By late May, I realized that my condition was no longer changing quickly either way, and my initial panic morphed into a steadier gloom. In mid June, the widely known twitches and vibrations appeared. While symptoms keep slowly evolving, no new major symptom class has emerged since August.
The headaches, exercise intolerance/fatigue, leg pains, easy bruising, and burning sensations and contact-sensitivity have been the most persistent symptoms. Twitches still continue sporadically as of this writing, along with the vibrations (buzzing electrical sensations) - but most symptoms now seem to generally follow a cyclical surge/recede pattern.
Q: What was your life like after you got the vaccine?
Among those injured by the vaccines, I have been very fortunate, and my experience barely seems worthy of being listed here alongside so many others who have suffered much, much more. While I’ve experienced heavy leg sensations and general fatigue, I have not experienced paralysis, and I only had to spend one night in the hospital.
The greatest acute danger was probably stroke risk during weeks 2 and 3, and my primary concern now is the possibility that this reaction could be a type of induced autoimmune disorder that may or may not resolve or ever be treatable. Significant activity or exercise is not very tolerable right now - though I can usually handle about 30 minutes of walking or light water exercise. And for the most part, I can still perform daily functions and have continued working. Among the unlucky, I was far luckier than most.
Q: Share your experience with any medical care and any diagnoses you have received:
After the hospital stay, I saw a neurologist and several other specialists. No conventional diagnosis has been forthcoming. Several of these doctors verbally recognized it was a vaccine reaction, but haven’t been able to recommend much specific treatment. Occasional follow up visits are ongoing, but I have ever diminishing expectations that anything actionable will come of it. And to get even that far has required some persistence. It seems that the healthcare system is not set up to deal effectively with unusual, complicated, or multifaceted conditions.
As a patient, you’d like to think you could rely on doctors to guide you through an experience like this, but that really can’t happen in the case of a vaccine reaction because there is no playbook.
And as of this writing, the CDC and FDA do not officially acknowledge that this type of reaction even exists. This is despite their quiet release this month, of vaccine data from Pfizer indicating that they have known for a long time: https://www.react19.org/post/cumulative-analysis-of-early-on-pfizer-vaccine-data-released-by-the-fda-11-17 . Now the FDA wants 55 more years to release the rest of it? We need to all call our Representatives and tell them this is unacceptable. Go to www.realnotrare.com and on the home page it will give you more information on what to do about this!
Q: Was your reaction reported, and what was the response?
Partially. But the system actually seems very effectively designed to minimize detection of vaccine hazards rather than to highlight them. VAERS might be marginally able to identify risks such as myocarditis, thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, or Guillain-Barre which have very specific symptoms and diagnostic criteria, but it doesn’t seem very suitable for detecting more systemic reactions involving widespread and less specific symptoms - especially any condition that doesn’t yet have a name. Every provider I’ve seen since April 22 knew about my vaccination history, and a copy of the card is in my medical records. But their reluctance to detract from the vaccines - even while privately recognizing my adverse reaction - is quite palpable. As a patient, shouldn’t I be able to simply rely on the system itself to detect and report whatever is appropriate/important without my intervention? … At a recent medical appointment, one provider suggested that I log in to VAERS myself to check and update whatever is in there. Since I essentially have a collection of symptoms to report as opposed to a unifying diagnosis, I had been holding off on this for months. (Admittedly, I also have very little enthusiasm for doing anything pertaining to the CDC.) Once this ‘anecdote’ is posted, my motivation will be bolstered, and I’ll make the effort to recheck this.
Q: Is there anything that has helped, and have your symptoms improved?
There has been incremental improvement in some symptoms and certainly changes in symptoms with time. The first six weeks post jab seemed like the worst overall. Since then, most of the major symptoms now have a cyclical character to them - surging and receding. The headaches seem to be helped by Claritin and other antihistamines but somewhat inconsistently. The B vitamins (particularly niacin) seem to help with the fatigue. NSAIDs help some with pain. Treatment is symptomatic, however.
Q: What do you wish others knew?
This whole pandemic mess has devolved into a proxy fight over partisan politics and tribal belonging - which has very little to do with anyone’s health. Mandates have become all about social dominance and the vicarious thrill of forcing others to comply - which also has very little to do with health. No matter what tribe you think you belong to, think carefully about potential consequences of normalizing this devolution because you might be on the other side of it sooner than you think.
Health decisions and health policy should be about risk/benefit - for society overall, for specific demographic risk groups, for families, and for individuals. Period. And there is always risk in anything. How could there not be? Is it really “antivax” to state the obvious fact that all medicines and vaccines ever invented have risks and unusual reactions in addition to their benefits? How could anything else possibly be true?
Nothing is ever completely “safe”. Aspirin has a warning on the bottle about Reye’s syndrome - an uncommon but very real condition that can be provoked by aspirin in young patients with viral infections such as flu or chickenpox. That doesn’t mean aspirin is bad - I use it myself - especially now. Some patients cannot tolerate the anti-hypertensives that I take daily. That doesn’t mean these drugs should not be used, but neither does it mean that one medication should be mandated for all patients with hypertension. One size fits all might be a tolerable exaggeration for some items of apparel, but it’s a poor and dangerous approximation when it comes to healthcare.
Yes, the vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 have saved lives. But, it is ridiculous beyond comprehension to suggest that they haven’t also killed and disabled people. Yet getting this acknowledgment from most doctors and public health officials is like pulling teeth from a psychotic tiger. And the predominant media often refuse to acknowledge even the few deaths that the CDC and FDA do. However grudgingly, the FDA/CDC recognize some of the deaths from thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome as being ‘probably’ due to the vaccine, but the prevailing media still often present these cases as ‘possibly’ connected to the vaccine and are very dismissive of these deaths. Whatever their numbers, why should these lives matter any less than those lost to COVID itself?
In this environment, you should be proactive about being informed - whatever the subject but especially your health. The truth will no longer come to you passively through any media - conventional or otherwise. Political division and the resultant propaganda has successfully infected every aspect of society and rendered virtually all institutions profoundly dysfunctional. You’ll hear lies from both sides. One side will tell you about microchips and graphene nanobots in the vaccines (obvious nonsense), and the other side will assure you that there are absolutely no adverse reactions whatsoever to the miraculous vaccines and that the record breaking safety of these wonder drugs is closely monitored. This may be a reassuring story from a source you thought you could trust, but it is just plain not true. While I cannot offer a precise estimate, there is no doubt in my mind that these vaccines carry orders of magnitude more risk of significant and lasting adverse consequences (up to and including death) than any other vaccine you’ve ever had.
But don’t just take my word for it. Look up the editorial “Are the Covid vaccines riskier than advertised?” authored by Dr. Lapado and Dr. Risch and originally published in the Wall Street Journal. Both authors have legitimate medical and public health credentials and are affiliated with reputable institutions. Read all of the personal accounts of adverse reactions listed here. Listen to the recent public hearing of the FDA advisory committee on approval for children. Pay specific attention to comments by Ms. Alvo and Ms. Dobbs. Watch the heavily suppressed videos of the press conference and round table on vaccine reactions that Sen. Johnson hosted. Is it seriously credible that so many people who never knew each other beforehand would simultaneously imagine an adverse reaction-all having such similar symptoms? Can you seriously believe that we are all ‘crisis actors’ or the like? … What I can tell you from the experiential knowledge of having a milder version of the reactions described by the press conference participants is that every single word of their accounts is absolutely true. Every. Single. Word. … The only ‘misinformation’ is any claim otherwise.
Perhaps you think our accounts are just rare ‘anecdotes’. Indeed, we all know our reactions aren’t the most common outcome. Most people will not share our experiences, because they are afraid of the consequences of doing so. But ‘rare’ has no clear meaning without quantification. In today’s febrile social environment, how likely would you be to put your name, face, and personal medical business on a website like this? Would you risk it? That’s your estimate of the detected-to-total case ratio. Add up the growing list of accounts posted here and then appropriately scale up to estimate how many of us there could plausibly be. (We already know there are many more than listed here, but this is an estimate you can partially make for yourself.)
Ultimately, you should do with your body what you wish to, but consider this: A vaccine is the one type of ‘medicine’ that you cannot undo. There is no antidote, antagonist, or counter agent. Your stomach cannot be pumped to halt the damage. And, by design, it is intended to effect permanent changes to your body. So short of a bone marrow transplant and rebuilding your immune system from scratch, what happens to your body post vaccine is about as forever as anything pertaining to your body gets. At best, doctors may be able to help you manage and blunt the symptoms of an adverse reaction, but there is quite clearly no cure.
And there is also a perverse twist to how people are treated: If you wind up with severe COVID, yes - you’ll probably get a lecture about how you should have been vaccinated (or boosted, whichever applies). But there is a diagnostic test for the disease. No one will gaslight you about the symptoms, and you will get the currently available treatments. And should you desire fame, you can always publicly repent of your prior ‘vaccine hesitancy’, and then you will become a local celebrity and darling of the conventional media. Soon you’ll be giving invited guest lectures to tearful and appreciative audiences at Ivy League schools of public health and signing autographs on your book tour.
But if you have a bad reaction to one of the COVID vaccines? … Well, good luck with that.
