The Covid Vax and Myocarditis

[Ginevra]

I am interested to know what is said about this, because (unsurprisingly) I know people who think there is an absolute correlation (very much reminds me of MMR/Autism in the early 2000s) and I know people who think it’s 100% bunk and there is no relationship. I’m towards the bunk end of this spectrum but I admit I have not read anything about it and I’ve only heard about it from unreliable sources. I am intentionally not googling it (yet, at least), because I am confident that will only muddy the waters more. 
 

So, what do my Smart People know?

[KSera]

I can tell you that myocarditis is not only much more common with a Covid infection than with the vaccine, but the type of myocarditis that happens with a Covid infection is often of a more serious, more damaging variety versus the mild self limiting type that (occasionally) happens after vaccination. 

[City Mouse]

I don’t know anyone who had a long term bad result from the vaccine. I do know 1 person who has had long term, probably permanent, heart damage from having the infection.

I know people of all ages who have been fully vaccinated. The person with the heart damage is late 40’s, overweight, female if that makes any difference. 

Edited September 4, 2023 by City Mouse

[Shoeless]

It's just anecdata, but I know of several people with cardiac issues after contracting covid. One person was 60s, obese, and already had significant health issues that covid made worse. 

I don't know of anyone that had long term issues post vax. I know a few people that felt kind of dumpy for a week after vax, but nothing serious. 

[Ginevra]

10 minutes ago, Shoeless said:

It's just anecdata, but I know of several people with cardiac issues after contracting covid. One person was 60s, obese, and already had significant health issues that covid made worse. 

I don't know of anyone that had long term issues post vax. I know a few people that felt kind of dumpy for a week after vax, but nothing serious. 

I said exactly this, though it is anecdotal, to the most recent person talking about the vax. But I know people who died from Covid. With one of my doses of the vax (the second one) I felt very crummy for five days but no issues long term. 

[Katy]

I have a niece who it happened to. She was a 20 year old female, previously healthy, who developed sudden myocarditis sometime in the six weeks after her first vaccine. It took about a year for her to recover.  She's now 22 and healthy again.

Also, when the US military releases how frequently it happened in young men, mostly lower 20's I think, it's definitely not a conspiracy theory. It's statistically true. But most people DID recover, and while I haven't looked at the data recently, the last time I did (more than a year ago), the vaccine was still much more likely to prevent death and disability from Covid infection (ETA: even in young adults) than it was to cause a cardiac side effect.

Edited September 4, 2023 by Katy

[gardenmom5]

dudeling developed myocarditis two weeks after his 2nd shot. (it was considered a *known risk* for young males).   We've all refused to have any more.
my sil kept getting boosters so her son would allow her to see her grandchildren.  HER DOCTOR told her that was what happened that caused a formerly healthy woman to nearly die. And most recently, have to have a pacemaker implanted because of the damage done to her heart.

[Melissa Louise]

A co-worker's son (whose account I trust) developed myocarditis after the Pfizer vax. 

He was in hospital for a day; is totally recovered.

My understanding is that there is a link, but that myocarditis after vax is less serious than after Covid.

[itsheresomewhere]

23 minutes ago, Shoeless said:

It's just anecdata, but I know of several people with cardiac issues after contracting covid. One person was 60s, obese, and already had significant health issues that covid made worse. 

I don't know of anyone that had long term issues post vax. I know a few people that felt kind of dumpy for a week after vax, but nothing serious. 

The only one I know personally is someone who has a lasting long term isn’t a cardiac issue.  They had the extremely rare side effect of the vaccine attacking their spinal column.  The doctors say he was one of few cases that have been reported.  He was very health before hand and became paralyzed from the armpits down.  It has been over a year and he has slowly relearned to walk and mostly recover.  He is still weak strength wise and has to take it easy as he can have flare ups. 

[catz]

I had a 14 year old nephew who was in the hospital prior to vax with covid and heart issues.  He couldn't play sports for 6 months after that.  He has been fully vaxxed since without issue.

As an aside, I also had a 10 year old niece hospitilized after covid with a fungal infection.  And another niece in her 20's that was hospitilized with covid pneumonia.  This was all prior to vax. 

[Alice]

It is a risk but it is rare and less of a risk than myocarditis from Covid. 

It's about 35 cases per million doses after Moderna and about 12 cases per million doses after Pfizer. Highest risk is after second (or later) vaccines and in young men 18-29. That is from the American College of Cardiology.  

Some sites give a higher risk usually because it changes when you look at specific risk groups, the highest I've seen is when you combine all cases  in that high risk (males in the high risk age group) after any dose is up to 77 cases per million doses given of any vaccine. The risk of myocarditis after Covid itself in that same age group is about 450 cases per million cases of Covid.

In general when you look at all age groups the risk of myocarditis from Covid is between 2-7x greater than myocarditis from the vaccine. 

In general, the myocarditis after the vaccine tends to be milder and more self-resolved than the myocarditis we've seen after Covid infection itself. 

 

[Ginevra]

3 minutes ago, Alice said:

It is a risk but it is rare and less of a risk than myocarditis from Covid. 

It's about 35 cases per million doses after Moderna and about 12 cases per million doses after Pfizer. Highest risk is after second (or later) vaccines and in young men 18-29. That is from the American College of Cardiology.  

Some sites give a higher risk usually because it changes when you look at specific risk groups, the highest I've seen is when you combine all cases  in that high risk (males in the high risk age group) after any dose is up to 77 cases per million doses given of any vaccine. The risk of myocarditis after Covid itself in that same age group is about 450 cases per million cases of Covid.

In general when you look at all age groups the risk of myocarditis from Covid is between 2-7x greater than myocarditis from the vaccine. 

In general, the myocarditis after the vaccine tends to be milder and more self-resolved than the myocarditis we've seen after Covid infection itself. 

 

Thank you for weighing in, Alice! 

[KSera]

49 minutes ago, Katy said:

I have a niece who it happened to. She was a 20 year old female, previously healthy, who developed sudden myocarditis sometime in the six weeks after her first vaccine. It took about a year for her to recover.  She's now 22 and healthy again.

Wow. I’m glad to hear she’s healthy again! That’s the only case I’ve read of someone having vaccine-related myocarditis that caused illness that serious and long lasting. That’s typically only that way for the kind caused by the disease itself (I don’t recall the details, but my understanding is that they are pretty different types of myocarditis caused by the two different causes and that’s why one is serious and one is not).

 

2 minutes ago, Alice said:

It is a risk but it is rare and less of a risk than myocarditis from Covid. 

It's about 35 cases per million doses after Moderna and about 12 cases per million doses after Pfizer. Highest risk is after second (or later) vaccines and in young men 18-29. That is from the American College of Cardiology.  

Some sites give a higher risk usually because it changes when you look at specific risk groups, the highest I've seen is when you combine all cases  in that high risk (males in the high risk age group) after any dose is up to 77 cases per million doses given of any vaccine. The risk of myocarditis after Covid itself in that same age group is about 450 cases per million cases of Covid.

In general when you look at all age groups the risk of myocarditis from Covid is between 2-7x greater than myocarditis from the vaccine. 

In general, the myocarditis after the vaccine tends to be milder and more self-resolved than the myocarditis we've seen after Covid infection itself. 

 

👆 Anyone can come up with anecdotes to support whatever they want, but this is the actual data. We had some good posts with studies and graphs and all that posted here way back, but I don’t have time to dig them up right now. The data is clear enough that it wouldn’t make sense for anyone to use this as the reason not to get the vaccine (I did however choose Pfizer for my teen son’s booster rather than Moderna, based on this data. Everyone else got Moderna.)

 

[Faith-manor]

36 minutes ago, KSera said:

Wow. I’m glad to hear she’s healthy again! That’s the only case I’ve read of someone having vaccine-related myocarditis that caused illness that serious and long lasting. That’s typically only that way for the kind caused by the disease itself (I don’t recall the details, but my understanding is that they are pretty different types of myocarditis caused by the two different causes and that’s why one is serious and one is not).

 

👆 Anyone can come up with anecdotes to support whatever they want, but this is the actual data. We had some good posts with studies and graphs and all that posted here way back, but I don’t have time to dig them up right now. The data is clear enough that it wouldn’t make sense for anyone to use this as the reason not to get the vaccine (I did however choose Pfizer for my teen son’s booster rather than Moderna, based on this data. Everyone else got Moderna.)

 

Same. We chose Pfizer for our sons for that reason, and the pharmacist at Rite Aid was very much on board with that and offered excellent counsel in the matter. Mark got Pfizer as well. I have had exclusively Moderna.

We have had several relatives die of covid, and 2 who appear to be permanently disabled from their covid infections. So even our son with a heart condition decided he would prefer to take the risk with the vaccine over the risk of the disease, and his cardiologist felt that this was the right decision. Thankfully apart from fever and chills for 24 hours after each vax/booster, he has been fine.

All one can do is look at the data and play the odds if you don't have any contraindications for the vaccine. 

[sassenach]

56 minutes ago, Alice said:

It is a risk but it is rare and less of a risk than myocarditis from Covid. 

It's about 35 cases per million doses after Moderna and about 12 cases per million doses after Pfizer. Highest risk is after second (or later) vaccines and in young men 18-29. That is from the American College of Cardiology.  

Some sites give a higher risk usually because it changes when you look at specific risk groups, the highest I've seen is when you combine all cases  in that high risk (males in the high risk age group) after any dose is up to 77 cases per million doses given of any vaccine. The risk of myocarditis after Covid itself in that same age group is about 450 cases per million cases of Covid.

In general when you look at all age groups the risk of myocarditis from Covid is between 2-7x greater than myocarditis from the vaccine. 

In general, the myocarditis after the vaccine tends to be milder and more self-resolved than the myocarditis we've seen after Covid infection itself. 

 

Alice, can you speak to this, because my understanding was that in men under 40, the risk was actually higher in the vaccine.

"The detailed analysis of nearly 43 million people was published Monday in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Among men under 40, there were an estimated four extra cases of myocarditis associated with the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine and 14 extra cases with the first dose of the Moderna vaccine for every 1 million men vaccinated. That risk rose with the second dose for all three vaccines studied and was highest for Moderna's, which had an additional 97 myocarditis cases per 1 million. For unvaccinated men under 40 with COVID-19, there were 16 additional myocarditis cases per million."

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.122.059970

[Katy]

4 hours ago, KSera said:

Wow. I’m glad to hear she’s healthy again! That’s the only case I’ve read of someone having vaccine-related myocarditis that caused illness that serious and long lasting. That’s typically only that way for the kind caused by the disease itself (I don’t recall the details, but my understanding is that they are pretty different types of myocarditis caused by the two different causes and that’s why one is serious and one is not).

 

Yeah, I have family from thst side that were angry with me that we decided to vaccinate DD4 despite the risk of myocarditis. Like didn’t speak to me for several months angry. But this neice has relatives (related to her but not to me) who died on their 3rd or 4th round of Covid after barely having symptoms the second time. And there’s a ton of autoimmune disease on that side of her family too.

We reasoned that if DD4 (born with pretty serious heart problems) got myocarditis from the vaccine she would definitely get it from covid. And when we did get covid we were glad she was fully vaxxed because she definitely had it the worst of all of us. 

[Shoeless]

5 hours ago, itsheresomewhere said:

The only one I know personally is someone who has a lasting long term isn’t a cardiac issue.  They had the extremely rare side effect of the vaccine attacking their spinal column.  The doctors say he was one of few cases that have been reported.  He was very health before hand and became paralyzed from the armpits down.  It has been over a year and he has slowly relearned to walk and mostly recover.  He is still weak strength wise and has to take it easy as he can have flare ups. 

Wow, I'm not sure I even knew that could happen. I'm glad he's recovering. 

Do doctors/scientists understand how the vax could attack the spinal column? 

[Ausmumof3]

I haven’t looked into it recently but last time I did there is definitely a link but the risk is much lower than for Covid (similarly to how the risks for the MMR vaccine are much lower than the risks of the disease but not non existent). I don’t think even the scientists who support vaccines deny that it can occur.

 

[Corraleno]

6 hours ago, KSera said:

(I did however choose Pfizer for my teen son’s booster rather than Moderna, based on this data. Everyone else got Moderna.)

5 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

Same. We chose Pfizer for our sons for that reason, and the pharmacist at Rite Aid was very much on board with that and offered excellent counsel in the matter. Mark got Pfizer as well. I have had exclusively Moderna.

Same here — I made sure DS got Pfizer and told him to take it easy and cut back on training for a couple of weeks after each shot. DD ended up getting all Pfizer just because it was more widely available, while I held out for Moderna boosters after getting Pfizer for the first 2, even though I had to wait a little longer.

I'm hoping to get Novavax for the updated booster, but I'm on the fence about the relative benefits (mixing vaccines seems to confer some extra benefit) versus increased risks (I think the myocarditis risk for Novavax is even higher than Moderna, at least from the Australian data that I saw) for my kids in their 20s.

Edited September 4, 2023 by Corraleno

[Katy]

2 hours ago, Shoeless said:

Wow, I'm not sure I even knew that could happen. I'm glad he's recovering. 

Do doctors/scientists understand how the vax could attack the spinal column? 

I think it's much more common in flu shots than c19 shots.  Here's the CDC info: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/guillain-barre-syndrome.html

[itsheresomewhere]

3 hours ago, Shoeless said:

Wow, I'm not sure I even knew that could happen. I'm glad he's recovering. 

Do doctors/scientists understand how the vax could attack the spinal column? 

They don’t know why it did.  It is an extremely rare and very few cases of of it happening.  

[Martha in GA]

Here is an article I saw re myocarditis:

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/321238

[Ginevra]

2 hours ago, Martha in GA said:

Here is an article I saw re myocarditis:

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/321238

Thank you but this does not appear to be a good source article. It looks like sensationalism-based news, not science-based. 

[Halftime Hope]

[Spryte]

Anecdata only: DH and I have two close,  long-term friends (of 30 and 24 years) in their early 50s who died within months post-Covid due to cardiac events, and FIL passed due to a blood clot post-Covid, all in the last 10 months. We also know a few people who had issues post vaccine (including me — I was hospitalized after the first and second vaccines), but everyone recovered, no deaths.

My feeling — based on actual data referenced above and my own lived experience — is that if one is going to have issues post-vaccine, those issues will likely be worse post-Covid, so I’ll take the vaccine, please. 

[Ginevra]

4 hours ago, Halftime Hope said:

I have a hard time understanding this chart. These are voluntary reporting agencies, right? The different places in the color key? (I have only ever heard of CDC VAERS.) So, it’s hard for me to understand how the graph really translates to scientifically controlled incidents. Otherwise, what would be the reason that adverse effect records would greatly vary by country? I would also want to know what criteria is used to determine an adverse effect. I would also like to see a graph that compares post Covid heart events. 

[Faith-manor]

Mom is doing a lot better. She had been isolated at home for five days with me leaving soups and stews on her porch for her to fetch which she has appreciated because she didn't feel like cooking. The paxlovid does bother her stomach a lot. But I dont know if that is a standard side effect. My mother has the most intolerant stomach in the universe. It is quite the snowflake of an organ.

Since it has been five days (7 since she became symptomatic, our sons who were home visiting, wanted to see her for a few minutes. They went in with N95's and sat on the opposite side of the room with the window open next to them. Calculated risk, but they worry about her so much and didn't want to leave without laying eyes on her and seeing that she was definitely going to be okay.

The next vaccine can't come soon enough for me. I am really hoping by the end of September. I have a window from Sept. 18- Oct. 1st where I could get the vax, hunker down because I am miserably sick for 2-3 days, and be recovered in time for my trip to Chicago to take care of a friend's children while she has a minor surgery. Her husband a professor of medicine, and can't take much time off. I would really like to be boosted before getting on the train!

[iamonlyone]

What I am seeing on FB that frustrates me is people who are anti-vax posting stories of young athletes who die from heart problems with the only comment an angry face or "Another one." They believe that these healthy young adults are dying because of the vaccine months or years after getting vaccinated. It is so frustrating to me because if a death is related to Covid at all, I would imagine maybe the connection is to a previous Covid infection and not the vaccine. It just seems like a big assumption to support a position.

[KSera]

1 hour ago, iamonlyone said:

What I am seeing on FB that frustrates me is people who are anti-vax posting stories of young athletes who die from heart problems with the only comment an angry face or "Another one." They believe that these healthy young adults are dying because of the vaccine months or years after getting vaccinated. It is so frustrating to me because if a death is related to Covid at all, I would imagine maybe the connection is to a previous Covid infection and not the vaccine. It just seems like a big assumption to support a position.

SO frustrating. You’re exactly right, and these post Covid heart deaths in young people started before there was ever a vaccine and it has continued to be more common among those who have not been vaccinated, so this refusal to look at the actual data and instead chalk it up to the vaccine,  causing people to remain unvaccinated and at increased risk is maddening.

 

[Halftime Hope]

2 hours ago, Ginevra said:

I have a hard time understanding this chart. These are voluntary reporting agencies, right? The different places in the color key? (I have only ever heard of CDC VAERS.) So, it’s hard for me to understand how the graph really translates to scientifically controlled incidents. Otherwise, what would be the reason that adverse effect records would greatly vary by country? I would also want to know what criteria is used to determine an adverse effect. I would also like to see a graph that compares post Covid heart events. 

These are different studies and a chart of the numbers they found in the data sets they examined. The left column of the data table lists either the lead author's name, or the entity reporting, and sometimes the authors' name + the dataset they used.

To your questions, you might look up each of the studies referenced or what the public entities reported.

For answers to your last question, you might look some of that up -- I don't have all the answers. 🙂 I was just providing some data on the initial question.

Edited September 4, 2023 by Halftime Hope

[historically accurate]

My google-fu is off today, and I couldn't find the studies shown in the graph above. But I did find this very informative paper on the topic from Public Health Ontario. It has a lot of information and is footnoted for further research.   https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/ncov/vaccines/2021/11/myocarditis-pericarditis-mrna-vaccines.pdf?sc_lang=en#:~:text=The risk of myocarditis is,2%2C than following mRNA vaccination.&text=The Ontario MOH also preferentially,12-29 years of age.

[Alice]

19 hours ago, sassenach said:

Alice, can you speak to this, because my understanding was that in men under 40, the risk was actually higher in the vaccine.

"The detailed analysis of nearly 43 million people was published Monday in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Among men under 40, there were an estimated four extra cases of myocarditis associated with the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine and 14 extra cases with the first dose of the Moderna vaccine for every 1 million men vaccinated. That risk rose with the second dose for all three vaccines studied and was highest for Moderna's, which had an additional 97 myocarditis cases per 1 million. For unvaccinated men under 40 with COVID-19, there were 16 additional myocarditis cases per million."

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.122.059970

I fairly quickly scanned the article so I definitely may have missed something. 

I'm not sure where the quote you gave that mentions "unvaccinated men" is from. As I understand it from reading the study, there weren't any truly  unvaccinated people. It's a little hard to parse out but I think what they did as look at people who had received the vaccine who got admitted to the hospital with myocarditis and then compared those who had recently had the vaccine and tested negative to those who had the vaccine and had a positive test either before or after the vaccine.  From their description of study population: We included all people ages 13 years or older who had received at least 1 dose of ChAdOx1 (AstraZeneca), BNT162b2 (Pfizer), and mRNA-1273 (Moderna) vaccine and were admitted to hospital or died from myocarditis between December 1, 2020, and December 15, 2021. 

And later: Among people receiving at least 1 vaccine dose, 5 934 153 (13.9%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, including 2 958 026 (49.8%) before their first vaccination.

So they had 42 million people they looked at who had gotten the vaccine and of those about 6 million also tested positive for Covid, 3 million was before their first vaccine. 

Not discounting that there is a risk of myocarditis with the vaccine, just that it's not really comparing the risk of myocarditis in those unvaccinated to those vaccinated. They didn't include the larger risk of myocarditis in everyone who had Covid, as far as I can tell. What it seems they did is consider a positive Covid test as a separate exposure from the vaccination. 

Looking at the AHA site, I couldn't specifically see anything else addressing this study but they do report more of the statistics I reported earlier, which is where I got some of mine...that there is a risk but it's higher with the infection than vaccine. And I think you could argue that this study showed that there was increased risk in people who had the vaccination AND got Covid over those who just got the vaccine. The difference could be that this study looked at data early on (vaccines given betwenn 2020 and 2021) and there is now more data (this study looked at 42 million people but there are now 12.7 billion doses given so a lot more potential data). 

 

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by Alice

[ktgrok]

anecdote, but I have a friend who was a distance runner - half marathons - who now can't exercise at all per cardiologist orders because she has had a lot of cardiac issues post Covid infection. She has had myriad tests and now is scheduled for even more extensive testing to try to figure out what is going on with her heart - the next round is a nuclear echocardiogram I think. She's already done the holter monitor, regular and nuclear stress tests, etc. 

I don't know anyone that has had heart issues after the vaccine. 

[ScoutTN]

We do know of a person, a young, healthy, adult man, who had serious heart issues and almost died within minutes of receiving the vaccine. Idk exactly what the heart issue was, but he had surgery that same day. He has recovered.
 

I am sure such things are exceedingly rare. But they do happen.

[ktgrok]

1 hour ago, ScoutTN said:

We do know of a person, a young, healthy, adult man, who had serious heart issues and almost died within minutes of receiving the vaccine. Idk exactly what the heart issue was, but he had surgery that same day. He has recovered.
 

I am sure such things are exceedingly rare. But they do happen.

The vaccine is linked with myocarditis - it happens later, not immediatlye, and is not treated with surgery. 

It sounds like this guy had a heart attack?

[KSera]

1 hour ago, ktgrok said:

anecdote, but I have a friend who was a distance runner - half marathons - who now can't exercise at all per cardiologist orders because she has had a lot of cardiac issues post Covid infection. She has had myriad tests and now is scheduled for even more extensive testing to try to figure out what is going on with her heart - the next round is a nuclear echocardiogram I think. She's already done the holter monitor, regular and nuclear stress tests, etc. 

I don't know anyone that has had heart issues after the vaccine. 

A lot of new POTS diagnoses in people post Covid as well.

[ScoutTN]

15 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

The vaccine is linked with myocarditis - it happens later, not immediatlye, and is not treated with surgery. 

It sounds like this guy had a heart attack?

Maybe, idk? Not someone I know personally. 

[Halftime Hope]

3 hours ago, historically accurate said:

My google-fu is off today, and I couldn't find the studies shown in the graph above. But I did find this very informative paper on the topic from Public Health Ontario. It has a lot of information and is footnoted for further research.   https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/ncov/vaccines/2021/11/myocarditis-pericarditis-mrna-vaccines.pdf?sc_lang=en#:~:text=The risk of myocarditis is,2%2C than following mRNA vaccination.&text=The Ontario MOH also preferentially,12-29 years of age.

I typed in Chua myocarditis Hong Kong and the study came up immediately in PubMed, and the first two similar studies listed below the paper were by Buchan (Ontario); they could be clicked to from the page I linked. The one by the CDC was likely published in the MMWR rather than in a journal.

I didn't look any further, but I tend to find that non-google search engines return a wider set of results.

[KSera]

3 hours ago, Halftime Hope said:

I typed in Chua myocarditis Hong Kong and the study came up immediately in PubMed, and the first two similar studies listed below the paper were by Buchan (Ontario); they could be clicked to from the page I linked. The one by the CDC was likely published in the MMWR rather than in a journal.

I didn't look any further, but I tend to find that non-google search engines return a wider set of results.

Of note from that study: 

“All cases are mild and required only conservative management.”

Not ideal, but better than the heart impacts of Covid itself. 

[Malory]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9021987/

We studied rates of myocarditis after a positive test result for SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, SARS-CoV-2 infection is associated with acute and postacute events other than myocarditis, including hospitalizations, intensive care unit admissions, and death.⁴⁰ The present study showed increased risk of myocarditis after a positive test result for SARS-CoV-2 infection, and the risk was highest in the older age groups, whereas the risk of myocarditis after vaccination was highest in the younger age groups. However, the estimated risk of any outcome after SARS-CoV-2 infection will be dependent on the testing strategy. If only severe COVID-19 cases are tested, the association with other events will be strengthened owing to selection bias. Therefore, to reduce selection bias in our analyses of myocarditis after SARS-CoV-2 infection, we included only the period from August 2020 onward, when testing was widely available in the Nordic countries.

[ktgrok]

12 hours ago, KSera said:

A lot of new POTS diagnoses in people post Covid as well.

true - I had POTS symptoms for 6 weeks after getting covid, and that was my only symptom

[Bootsie]

I know a couple who attribute their 30-year old daugheter's myocaditis and death in 2021 to the vaccine.  She had been a collegiate athlete and was a marine with a lot of physical training.  Because of a specific Marine assignment, she had just undergone extensive medical testing which had not revealed any underlying heart issue.  

[Dmmetler]

13 hours ago, KSera said:

A lot of new POTS diagnoses in people post Covid as well.

M went to PS in August 2021, the state banned the school from enforcing mask mandates in late September (not that they ever really did, but at least some of the kids masked) , got COVID in October, and started having POTS symptoms soon after, to the point that by March, they had POTS and Dysautonomia DX's and a 504 plan. They lost most of last school year trying to find some combination of things that works, and it's only this fall that I'm starting to see glimmers of the kid who existed prior to getting COVID. 

 

I have four students, out of 12, in my homeschool class who are homeschooling/virtual schooling due to chronic illness since having COVID. These are the kids who supposedly were the age where they weren't badly affected, and where mask mandates and really any mitigation efforts were dropped almost across the board before they could even have the option of being vaccinated. I know it's a biased sample (if these kids were healthy, they'd be in public school, and many homeschool programs don't allow kids doing virtual public to enroll), but it's still scary. 

 

 

 

 

[Happy2BaMom]

1 hour ago, Dmmetler said:

M went to PS in August 2021, the state banned the school from enforcing mask mandates in late September (not that they ever really did, but at least some of the kids masked) , got COVID in October, and started having POTS symptoms soon after, to the point that by March, they had POTS and Dysautonomia DX's and a 504 plan. They lost most of last school year trying to find some combination of things that works, and it's only this fall that I'm starting to see glimmers of the kid who existed prior to getting COVID. 

 

I have four students, out of 12, in my homeschool class who are homeschooling/virtual schooling due to chronic illness since having COVID. These are the kids who supposedly were the age where they weren't badly affected, and where mask mandates and really any mitigation efforts were dropped almost across the board before they could even have the option of being vaccinated. I know it's a biased sample (if these kids were healthy, they'd be in public school, and many homeschool programs don't allow kids doing virtual public to enroll), but it's still scary.

 

And I have an extended family member, a 30-yr-old formerly-uber-athlete w/ no health issues, who now has chronic adult-onset severe asthma (life-altering), which started immediately after the second bout of Covid last February. So far it is not improving with time, but we hold out hope.

It's these stories that make me so frustrated / disgusted with the "it's totally minor for the majority of people" crowd. And, no, that doesn't mean we need to live with lockdowns. There's a lot of potential stops on the continuum between lockdowns and everyone living as a selfish a$$hat.

 

[kathyl]

Our daughter-in-law had an episode of "possible myocarditis" a few weeks after she had the Covid shot.  It scared ds and her enough for them to go see a cardiologist.  He did lots of tests and said the only thing he could figure out was that it was "possibly myocarditis" and to rest and take it easy for a while and come back if it reappears.  It never reappeared.  He also said he had been seeing more and more of these kinds of cases.

She was 28yo, in great shape, very healthy and health conscious, and had never had Covid. 

The other cases of Covid that I know of personally are me and 5 of our kids.  All 3 dd's had the Covid shot as mandated by their jobs.  2 ds's did not have the shot and neither did I. 

When one ds had Covid, he had flown to visit dd and her dh and apparently caught it on the plane despite wearing a mask.  They all 3 had it together - dd and her dh both vaccinated, ds not - and all their symptoms were exactly the same and recovery times exactly the same.  

When our other 2 (vac) dd's and other (unvac) ds caught Covid their symptoms were exactly the same and recovery times the same, too.

All dc were living in different locations, mostly different states.  And all in great shape, and often run races and marathons.

When I caught Covid (at the gym), ds's were here and they 'talked me through it', along with dd's via phone calls, telling me exactly what to expect, etc.  It went pretty much like they had said, except I had one episode where my heart felt weird when I was out weeding flower beds.  I just took a couple of Bayer regular strength aspirin, rested, and took it easy for a few weeks and was fine.  Kinda like the cardiologist had told daughter-in-law to do ...

Oh, and our 94yo neighbor was living alone and had never had Covid.  A couple other neighbors and we would help her if she needed something because she didn't drive anymore.  And her grandson would fly in to take care of things every few months.  Someone decided she should get the Covid shot so she did.  A few months afterwards, she began to go downhill rather quickly, mostly mentally.  Her grandson and the neighbor who helped her the most said they thought "she got much worse after having the shot".  Within a few months the grandson moved her to live near him because she couldn't function alone anymore.

FWIW ...

Edited September 5, 2023 by kathyl

[Ausmumof3]

So in kind of related news these are two anecdotes that I’ve heard in the last two weeks. Guy with new onset type diabetes claims his doctor told him either the vaccine or maybe Covid gave it to him. I’ve heard evidence for Covid causing it possibly since before the shots even existed. I’ve never heard of the shots causing diabetes anyone know? And secondly a guy with an ongoing cough who claims the doctor told him we all know what’s causing it even though we’re not supposed to say. It’s the Pfizer cough. This is not someone who I think tends to lie or exaggerate or make things up, so I guess the doctor really did say that. Has anyone heard of that? It doesn’t make sense to me - the vaccine goes into muscle not the respiratory tract so how could it cause a cough? 

[ktgrok]

14 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

So in kind of related news these are two anecdotes that I’ve heard in the last two weeks. Guy with new onset type diabetes claims his doctor told him either the vaccine or maybe Covid gave it to him. I’ve heard evidence for Covid causing it possibly since before the shots even existed. I’ve never heard of the shots causing diabetes anyone know? 

Diabetes as in type 1 or type 2? Type 1 is caused by an autoimmune reaction in the body so anything that triggers the immune system from a cold virus to strep throat to a flu shot can trigger it. Disease triggers the immune system more than vaccines do, so. more often it is an illness not a vaccine that triggers it. But anything can. 

I have no idea how a covid vaccination could trigger type 2 diabetes though. 

[Ausmumof3]

1 minute ago, ktgrok said:

Diabetes as in type 1 or type 2? Type 1 is caused by an autoimmune reaction in the body so anything that triggers the immune system from a cold virus to strep throat to a flu shot can trigger it. Disease triggers the immune system more than vaccines do, so. more often it is an illness not a vaccine that triggers it. But anything can. 

I have no idea how a covid vaccination could trigger type 2 diabetes though. 

Type one, and yeah I agree but I guess if anything that triggers the immune system can cause it maybe a vaccine can? I don’t think it’s logical but at this point I’m feeling so worn down. DH has completely changed on this and now claims he was forced to have the vaccine and it almost seems to be majority view down here that any and every health problem was due to the vaccine

Edited September 5, 2023 by Ausmumof3

[goldberry]

On 9/3/2023 at 8:02 PM, Alice said:

It is a risk but it is rare and less of a risk than myocarditis from Covid. 

That is my understanding as well. The vaccine produces an immune response similar (but of course different from) the actual virus.  I speculate that the people that have a reaction to the vaccine might be the same people who would have a similar but even more extreme reaction to the actual infection.  Of course there is no way to know that.  But vaccine side effects seem to often mirror actual infection side effects.

I had a workmate who had a severe heart attack about a week after his second Covid shot.  He swears it was the vaccine.  But he had an actual Covid infection previously and also random chest pain before getting the vaccine.  So who really knows?

[Paige]

My then 14yr old daughter had a suspected case after her pfizer  booster. She's never had heart issues before and 24hrs after the booster her resting heart rate shot to around 160. It stayed high for months- basically until the cardiologist put her on beta blockers which she still takes. We hope she'll come off them soon. She had an undiagnosed mitral valve prolapse so maybe that was enough to cause issues with the vaccine or it could be a very strange coincidence that it decided to act up that day. She's extremely small and active- very healthy. 

But I got her another booster and I would again. My reasoning is that if she reacted like this to the vaccine, then we don't want to see what actual covid would do to her. She's the only one we know who may have had a serious vaccine reaction but I know several people who have died and many other people who have long covid or other permanent serious damage from covid.