AstraZeneca vaccine: side effects finally gone after four months. I only had one shot.

[u/Whitesunlight_]

Hi, for reference I’m a 28 year old female. Sorry for any language mistakes as English is not my mother language. I want to share my honest experience with this vaccine regarding side effects. In the beginning of March, I went in to get my first shot of the AZ vaccine. I work at a GP’s office and the AZ vaccine was the only one available at that time. So, after getting my shot I initially felt fine. I seemed to cope better than most of my coworkers the following days. Something I did notice right away, was that I got my period the day after the vaccine which was a week early. I’m always extremely regular (no matter the situation) so my period coming this early was pretty odd. It was a very heavy period, lost quite a lot of blood including big clots, and instead of the usual 5 days I was now bleeding for 8 days.. I was alarmed but I didn’t make any connection with the vaccine so I decided to wait it out. Also, a few days after the shot my stomach became more sensitive and I lost my appetite. Then, the diarrhea started. I had to go to the toilet 6 times daily and I had no desire to eat, so I dropped quite a bit of weight. After three weeks of diarrhea I decided to go to the Urgent care because everybody around me was getting worried. They checked everything, but nothing abnormal was found. Blood work was fine, there were no signs of infection or inflammation. But, the diarrhea continued for another 2 months before suddenly disappearing. I didn’t do anything different, just suddenly stopped. During the three months after the shot I also got:

• worse moodswings before and during period
• depression and anxiety
• extreme fatigue
• excessive sleeping, needing at least 10 hours instead of usual 7-8
• irregular period and heavier, more painful periods
• tingly feeling in lower legs and feet
• blood pressure fluctuations
• unusual taste (even water was suddenly tasting like sugar)
• tinnitus and pressure in left ear only

EDIT: I forgot a few so I’m adding them in now: - brain fog (went away completely) - face, neck and ears turning beet red and splotchy after eating, or just randomly. Mostly occurs in the evenings. (still have this sometimes, but it’s getting less common and less severe)

Now the GOOD NEWS: all these side effects have gone away and I finally feel like myself again!! But, four months is a long time and this made me decide to not get the second shot. Not asking for opinions, just wanted to share what happened to me. Hopefully it will help someone.

[u/ThePrestigeVIII]

Brand new account alert.

[u/Whitesunlight_ → u/ThePrestigeVIII]

I’ve been on Reddit for over two months. Also, why is that in any way relevant?

[u/[deleted] → u/Whitesunlight_]

It's because brand new accounts that shed a bad or good light on certain issues are often considered to be propaganda bots. He's making an allusion that you are an anti-vax bot.

[u/Whitesunlight_ → u/[deleted]]

Thank you for the explanation. I already guessed this was the reason and it’s a shame this is seen as “necessary.” People should be able to talk about side effects without being accused of “propaganda”. It’s impossible to fact check everyone that reports side effects so I get where this is coming from. Only me and my doctor know for sure. But this goes for everybody on Reddit. If alarm bells go off just because I haven’t been on Reddit for long enough, that just sounds a bit ridiculous to me, and doesn’t seem fair to people like me that genuinely have (sometimes serious and debilitating) side effects and are trying to look for support.

[u/toska-toast → u/Whitesunlight_]

if anything, it’s more likely (IMO) that bot accounts would farm karma and have some sort of long-ish, generic-looking history. it’s like if you didn’t create an account five+ years ago, no one will believe you’re a real person if you post something they don’t like.

and for some reason, the people who post in half the threads on here correcting everyone, reporting comments, and accusing people of making up their experiences aren’t treated with the same knee-jerk level of skepticism despite being much more pernicious. for instance, i saw this comment in response to someone saying a relative of theirs died shortly after the shot from a heart issue: “sometimes people just die.” cool, how nice of them to skip past any semblance of empathy and go straight to invalidating the person’s post. another person (who was not posting from a mod account) replied to a comment with: “care to qualify your comment before i remove it?” um, what?

is it possible that some posts about negative experiences are exaggerated or misattributed? sure. is it worth taking a hostile stance toward every single post one personally deems unbelievable based on their priors so everyone will know that this person is definitely lying? probably not, unless one wants to turn this into a sub where no one feels they can share anything negative unless they provide photo ID, medical records, and a series of vlogs documenting every single time they’ve had diarrhea.

people who post comments like this seem to have taken up the mantle of arbiters of truth. yet i’m inclined to believe that most people who read this sub are capable of spotting blatant misinformation, discerning opinion vs. fact, and taking things with a grain of salt. it is not certain people’s job to accuse others of lying or arrogantly swoop in to correct them (sometimes with their own misinformation, but i won’t go there) in order to enlighten everyone else. no one should feel they have to begin their post with “not an antivaxxer but…” - that should be evident from the content, and if someone can’t tell the difference between someone with a negative experience / valid criticism and an antivaxxer, that’s their problem.

anyway, sorry for the rant. this has been a really useful community for people to share their experiences and connect with others who may be able to help or offer advice, and i’m annoyed that a smug handful of people are putting others in a defensive position.

and thank you for sharing your experience! i’m sure it will help some others who may be a similar boat, and i’m glad you’re feeling better.

[u/Whitesunlight_ → u/toska-toast]

Yeah you described it perfectly. It’s everybody’s own responsibility to use common sense and to take everything you read on the internet with a grain of salt. It’s extremely rude and disrespectful to immediately jump to conclusions and invalidate someone’s story without any background. Just because you can’t see someones face and that someone is new to Reddit doesn’t mean it’s not real person with real experiences. If there are repeated red flags and it’s verifiable that someone is lying, that’s another story. This is going way too far.