Has anyone experienced the COVID Vaccine react negatively to your Arthritis condition??

johnnyarthritis

I just recently had my 2nd Pfizer injection to complete my COVID-19 vaccination. Unfortunately, the vaccine, for some strange reason, decided to target my "Arthritis condition!" I experienced horrible throbbing pain in my mid-back and legs, ankles, and feet! (The location of my Arthritic condition.) It stopped after 2 days. Now, I cannot stand or walk on my own without a Walker! What the Hell is going on?? Why would the vaccine do that to my arthritis condition and to my physical body?? Surely, someone else here with "Arthritis" has experienced the same awful experience that I have? Can you explain what happened and should I be concerned? Not being able to walk because of what the vaccine decided to attack my arthritic area, has me greatly concerned. I feel strength ever so slowly coming back but this ridiculous! Again, I just need to hear from some of you others who have gone through this same experience. I have spoken to a Nurse and a Physician who stated that this is, indeed, unusual, but not uncommon. Are you kidding me? I would appreciate any suggestions for feedback on this specific situation. Thank You. Hope to hear from anyone soon..........JohnnyA.

Tom

Welcome to the community, @johnnyarthritis.

I understand that you are concerned at a bad reaction to you second Pfizer vaccination.

I suggest that you call our freephone helpline: 0800 5200 520 to talk things through with one of our helpline team. With better understanding, I think they should be able to give you more tailored advise.

Good luck and do let the Community know how you get on.

Tom

stickywicket

Anything that makes us worse, even temporarily, is scary. Unfortunately, a few things can trigger a flare. If you look at threads below yours you'll see one or two people feel their vaccine (either AZ or Phizer) has caused a reaction. It's too difficult to work out whether or why that may be true as these vaccines were, necessarily, brought out very quickly. I think your only consolation is that covid would, undoubtedly, trigger an even worse one. I do hope things will improve soon. If you do the recommended exercises they should make your recovery quicker. https://www.versusarthritis.org/about-arthritis/exercising-with-arthritis/ Good luck.

Shayalex

My patient showed improvements in dynamics.After he got vaccinated and got sick, there were more side effects.In fact, the virus, this will be our war of the 21st century, since it mutates very quickly, and has a different form, and the disease proceeds differently for everyone..

CuriousSquirrel

I had no symptoms at all before the vaccine, and immediately after the vaccine I got lots of symptoms which eventually led to my arthritis diagnosis. I had the first dose of the AZ vaccine and won't be having any more after that experience! It has disabled me for life. So sorry to hear you ha a bad reaction to it too. I have heard many similar stories.

Healthcare professionals have been very defensive and dismissive so I now have no trust in them!

Arthuritis

@CuriousSquirrel @stickywicket@johnnyarthritis

Unfortunately vaccines have become a politicised mantra, and science thrown out the window by politicians & medics gagged. - The reason - politicians think the science behind it, and trying to understand it, will be too complicated and confusing for joe public, who will run scared if they don’t understand.

However, very briefly and it is as simplified as I can make

ALL vaccines (covid vax is based on good science) consist of two parts, a tiny bit of expensive antigen (part of spike or other pathogen component) for the immune system to recognise, and as its tiny, it will almost certainly be seen by the immune system as no threat and *ignored*.

To make the immune system pay attention & see this tiny bit of antigen, the jab contains an immune stimulant, which causes local inflammation at the injection site. This causes your immune cells to rush to the site, take pieces of the offending antigen back to the lymph nodes and raises the alarm to wake up the rest of the troops. Or picture this, an alarmed hornet that gets angry and goes back to the hive, releases chemo signals to have the hive swarm & buzz with anger.

RA is like an over active angry swarm, managed by immune suppressors like MTX, but the vax jab does the opposite, it stimulates it.

Now, flare ups caused by vaccines to long established RA sufferers is well known, all the Rheumatologists know this.

But they only have established knowledge that vaccines can cause flare ups, and its assumed these will come down or be treatable.

There is little objective evidence, of the impact on early RA, ie there aren’t hundreds of well documented cases of early RA being accelerated & ratcheted up to chronic state.

Only anecdotal observations available on what happens when you have very early stage/mild arthritis that might have been mild enough to put into remission before it gets chronic (within the treatment window of opportunity), can get rapidly accelerated to a more aggressive disease, shrinking the treatment opportunity window.

However you will have already got RA autoantibodies at low level for the vax to accelerate the pre-existing low level disease.

I feel this is what happened in my case, Jab 1 locked my jaw, but resolved later, jab 2 claw hands & swollen feet in morning, and jab 3 was fluVax which had me waking up with excruciating pain in my hand, shown up in ultrasound scans. Since then it has not let up. I have been Dx’d as having aggressive RA from nowhere.

When I asked my Rheumies about this one said yes it is possible the series of jabs put me over the edge, the other said he’d heard of flares but not heard of ratcheting up the disease level by vaccine adjuvant (any vaccine).

I don’t know how many of us have quietly gone through this, but we need a collective voice to let the NHS/MHRA know this needs investigation.

For now, @CuriousSquirrel , all I can suggest is reporting with as much detail as possible to the Yellow Card/MHRA system. One of the mods here gave me a link to it.

MHRA do read & follow up, with very relevant questions.

My guess is, like the loss of sense of smell, the NHS will catch up after its become common knowledge in the media & then update their practice.

Even how the vaccine is given can cause problems, if its injected into a vessel instead of muscle. In the old days nurses would “aspirate” the needle just after jabbing to make sure no its in muscle (no blood gets drawn back), or in a vessel (blood gets drawn back). As there is low incidence of this risk, a public health decision was made to abandon this safe practice to save 30seconds.

There should be a check prior to vaccines being given that you don’t have any inflammation already that would get triggered by the powerful immune stimulant in the vaccine.

Do keep us posted.

Arthuritis

@CuriousSquirrel @johnnyarthritis @stickywicket

Here is the MHRA link

https://yellowcard.mhra.gov.uk/

CuriousSquirrel

https://community.versusarthritis.org/discussion/comment/688117#Comment_688117

Thanks, that's all useful information. I did report my symptoms on the Yellow Card system, though before my diagnosis.

I fear that however many people tell their rheumatologists about reactions like this, they are so terrified of losing their jobs if they say anything that could be construed as remotely critical of the vaccine that they will keep their heads in the sand and be in total denial. A close friend of mine who lives in the same town developed raynauds right after the vaccine so they will almost certainly be seeing one of the same rheumatologists (there aren't many here and I think I've seen them all!) It will be interesting to see if tell my friend they've never heard of this sort of thing happening too. I bet they do. I also believ that if I said I developed my symptoms after having Covid they would not be so dismissive and defensive, even though that could just as easily be a 'coincidence'!

It's a shame as this has done more damage to my mental health than any other aspect of the disease so far- the pain, the general incompetence of NHS staff, the financial impact, the missed work, the missed fun, the fear of all the things I will no longer be able to do... all of that pales in comparison to the terror of knowing I can no longer trust a single person in the medical profession, and they are responsible for my health now. Chances are I will soon be refused treatment in our hospitals anyway for refusing a second dose of that disabling poison!

I hope your newer symptoms resolve as your earlier ones did. What a horrible situation we are all in!

CuriousSquirrel

https://community.versusarthritis.org/discussion/comment/684657#Comment_684657

I tried to console myself thinking that without the vaccine I may have got covid and had the same reaction, but it's not much of a consolation. I know a lot of people who have had covid, pretty much 50/50 vaccinated and unvaccinated. They have suffered to various extents, not necessarily less so for having been vaccinated. However, nobody I know who had covid has had an autoimmune disease or lifelong disability as a result! However, I do have a close friend who also has a chronic condition now since the vaccine, and have heard accounts of very similar things from people I trust implicitly. I know this is all anecdotal, but the facts and figures being reported mean nothing to me when I know so many people like me are being ignored, our experiences do not factor into the equation.

I have been doing many recommended exercises and no improvement in symptoms from anything besides a steroid injection, which I can feel is starting to wear off now. Nobody I have spoken to has suggested that my symptoms will improve (though of course they deny the vaccine could have anything to do with it.) Seems I have been permanently damaged by this medical experiment. I hope for some others it is temporary!

Coral

I also suspect that the jabs have precipitated me into chronic RA. I have filled out the MHRA report, and have no idea if this life change is permanent or not. Such a difficult time to be ill re seeing doctors etc.

YvonneH

Hi @Coral

welcome to the Online Community, it’s great to meet you. I can see you have just been diagnosed with RA. Well done for filling in the MHRA report, hopefully your condition will be well controlled once your tablets are sorted.

Heres our information about RA

https://www.versusarthritis.org/about-arthritis/conditions/rheumatoid-arthritis/

if you start a new discussion in the Living with Arthritis area letting us know any issues you are facing in relation to your diagnosis I’m sure help will be forthcoming

Take care

Yvonne x

Lisa_R

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https://community.versusarthritis.org/discussion/55023/has-anyone-experienced-the-covid-vaccine-react-negatively-to-your-arthritis-condition

Hi, I luckily haven't faced any issues after my Covid vaccine except for mild fever and body pain for 2 days. But, my mother had horrible back pain and she couldn't even stand properly for one week after the vaccination. She was restored back to health after a couple of week. How is your health now? Have you consulted for any treatment? Wishing you a speedy recovery.

Guzzle

Hi I have psoriatic arthritis I was diagnosed in mid 2018 when it crippled me and was on walking sticks for 3 months until I got treatment and got my methotrexate sorted which after another 6 months I noticed a big difference . Since then I have not had any serious flare ups until now I have had 3 jabs the last one being in October 2021 I noticed running upto Xmas I was getting flare ups in my hands and knees but could carry on working and put it down to the weather as I am a skilled worker . On January 11th I started having a severe flare up in most joints so had to go off work and I have been prescribed a low dose of steroid tablets from my rheumatologist as they will not administer a steroid jab to me they said because of covid still being highly present . I am now currently still off work 4 weeks on I did ask my rheumatologist about any links to vaccines and Arthritis flare ups and was told that yes they have seen some case being reported but there is no research at this moment being done to connect the two . I have not yet reported my flare up but will do so reading these post but I do feel it’s strange after over 2 years I have not had a severe flare up hopefully we can get some answers soon but it would be good to get all together who have had reactions or possibly reaction between vaccines and arthritis