Pfizer # 1: FL1072
I’m 36 and live in Hamilton. I grew up in South Africa, then spent 17 years in Australia before moving to New Zealand to be with mum after a redundancy approx. 2 years ago
I have a pre-existing condition that I’ve since I was a kid – Eosinophilic Esophagitis, which affects me when I eat. I have to take it easy, chew well, watch my diet, and always have water on hand, because it basically causes inflammation and choking. Doctors have thought it is from living amongst acid rain in Africa as a child, causing a permanent allergic response. I used to take ‘Nexium’ for it – Funnily enough it’s a Pfizer drug and they are currently going through court it with it as it has caused Kidney failure, stomach cancer and Osteoporosis in many people. I went off it a few years ago and don’t take anything for it.
After finishing a full time course last year, I enrolled in a Landscape construction and design course at Wintec, as I envision having my own Landscaping business one day. The course was due to start in February 2022 and had a requirement to be covid vaccinated. Between that and my mum not wanting to be vaccinated and her boss bullying her around that, I wanted to be in a position to go back to work if it got to that.
I didn’t want the vaccine, I’m not against them, but was hesitant due to knowing about Meningitis vaccine trials in Nigeria in 1996, plus the side effects of this Pfizer vaccine being young people having heart conditions, but thought I was old enough to escape that.
I had the first Pfizer vaccine on the 16th of December 2021. I had no immediate side effects and was fine until midnight, then the whole left side of my body was in pain, and it felt like I’d been kicked and was feverish and sore – this lasted 3 days. I then felt sort of normal until the 24th of December, when I developed chest pain that started to get worse throughout the night. I told mum I thought I needed to go to the hospital. The nurse was rude to me when I went in and said, “You’ll be in there for about 3 hours and be sent home with indigestion or something” and led me into a room with a bed and I sat down. When I lay down my heart started racing really bad, so I had to sit/prop myself back up myself for relief. I received some pain relief, and they hooked me up to the heart monitor and ECG, took bloods, chest Xray, and troponin, which showed no significant level of troponin in my blood. This was a relief as it meant no evidence of heart damage. Pains were going from my neck to my jaw, I had pins and needles in my hands and feet, and It felt like I was rubbing my fingers on sandpaper. All my limbs had stabbing and aching pains plus I had a massive headache with a feeling of pressure in my head. My mum was with me at the time, and I tried to keep calm as possible; I’d heard of people dropping dead so knew it could be serious. They gave me anti-inflammatory and pain relief; I was there for a matter of hours. On the discharge papers it states, “No obvious pericardial infusion, no enlargement of right heart” and down the bottom it says “impression of possible pericarditis post vaccine” I was sent home with the impression that I would be fine in the next couple of days and just to rest up, but that wasn’t what ended up happening.
Mid-Morning on 3rd of January I was back in ED with chest pains. The primary diagnosis on my discharge papers, from a doctor who had spoken to a cardiologist, was “Post-vaccine Pericarditis”. I was discharged about 9-10pm that night. They prescribed me Colchicine and submitted an ACC treatment injury form.
I was housebound with my symptoms and couldn’t walk very far – Showering everyday was like mountain climbing and I just felt physically week all over my body.
I’d contacted Wintec throughout January to tell them how sick I was from the vaccine, but it took several tries to contact them and to get acknowledgement of my email. I managed to get someone on the phone in February. My emails had bounced around and nobody wanted to respond/take responsibility. I’d sent complaints that no one was getting back to me. They referred me to their mental health team and also let me know that litigation would not go very far (which I was serious about it the time). I wanted my course to be swapped to an online one as I wasn’t able to attend onsite, but they just referred me to an online one that wasn’t accredited.
I contacted NZDSOS in February, who put me on a whole lot of supplements and a course of Prednisone which I took for 2 weeks to quell the neurological symptoms – My heart pain was worse while taking it (I was told it might be), but it alleviated the stabbing and aching pain in my arm and leg muscles – any amount of walking had been exhausting prior, but it provided me relief for a time.
The next hospital visit was 9th March, they focussed on my heart with an ECG, chest X-Ray and bloods. The chest pains weren’t going away, and I’d started getting a lot of abdominal pain and also started to fall over. I’d been getting really dizzy, had fallen 7 times and had resorted to walking with a cane for stability. Luckily, I’d had nothing more than a bruise with any of the falls, I couldn’t drive in the state I was in. They ended up giving me massive daily doses of 1000mg paracetamol, 200mg ibuprofen and Colchicine.
Soon after that my stools had gone black, which can indicate intestinal bleeding, so I stopped taking the pain medication – The colchicine was keeping me semi functional. I took all of my paperwork to the first doctor after my follow up from hospital (even the discharge saying, ‘Post-vaccine Pericarditis’, as he looked at it and I said to him “So Is this all in my head?!”, Then he said, “Quite possibly”.
I’m still taking some supplements and found a cannabis clinic 2 months ago, and now take CBD oil twice a day, and 2 hours before bed I take THC (which needs careful dosage) and means now I seldom get woken up with palpitations, but it does still happen sometimes. It’s really improved things for me, it has dulled the pain (not anywhere near like it was) and meant no more pain meds. I’ve taken to sleeping on the couch as the position I can lie in there is more comfortable. It has improved my mood, plus I noticed last week that the headache I’d had for 140 days (soon after vaccine) is finally gone! There was nothing that would help it at all – I feel a whole lot more relaxed now.
I have been walking without a cane for about a month without dizziness and hoping to get back to my bush walks which I miss, I’m planning to start an online landscape design starting in July, and also hope to get back on my rowing machine by the end of 2022.