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COVID Vaccine Caused Leg Numbness, Depression, Chest Pain, Neurological Issues & More

For the most part of my life I have been extremely healthy. I’ve never had a flu shot, and yet I’ve only had the flu once in my entire life in the eighth grade.

As far as my mental health is concerned, I always struggled with ADHD, depression, and anxiety, but I had been pretty medically stable (i.e. no new medications or increase in dosage of medications) for roughly a few years.

Then March of 2020 hit, and for the first time in a very very long time I got hit hard, by something. Probably the worst fever I have ever felt. I opened all the windows of our apartment even though it was snowing outside, and my husband came home from work and asked “Aren’t you cold?” To which I replied, “No. I’m boiling.”

And of course, I went to the medical establishment only for them to blow me off, tell me that’s “normal” and refuse to give me a Covid test.

I ended up with what you might know as “long COVID” and I had quite a bit of brain fog, loss of sense of taste and smell, and fatigue for roughly 8 months.

Finally, the vaccine came out and I couldn’t wait to get it. I was tired of wearing masks. After my experience with what I can only guess was Covid, I never wanted to get Covid ever again, and this gave me something I was looking for: hope.

We both got in line, got our shots and well everything was normal enough. I had a light fever, but nothing terrible. We even went shopping that day and bought a Labrador puppy (Hershi) and played with her in the yard.

It wasn’t until the next morning that I knew something was terribly wrong. My alarm went off, and I hit the button to turn it off, and I swung my legs over the bed, went to stand up,

And I fell. I crumpled like an old newspaper and hit the floor with a big “thud.” My husband ran in the room to come check on me “Are you okay?” And I sat there, dumbfounded.

I said, “I tried to get up but my legs, they feel like Jello.” He said “That’s impossible! What could have caused that?” I responded, “I have no idea!” And then it dawned on me.

Could it have been the shot? Naw. That’s crazy. I pushed that thought aside, and then I managed to pull myself up and, with great effort and concentration take a few steps, but I noticed I became out of breath, my chest felt tight, and my heart twinged ever so slightly, and even felt painful.

I rationalized the chest pain, thinking “This must be anxiety” something that I have dealt with my entire life. Truthfully, if I went to the doctor every time my chest felt tight, my heart raced and was slightly painful my medical bills would be sky high.

I ate breakfast and then laid down on the couch, finally telling my husband what happened and how I was feeling. My heart felt as if it would suddenly begin to race in my chest and then settle down, and I would feel dizzy, with chest pain.

I told him my suspicions: that I felt the shot could have done this, and well he thought I was “crazy”. He told me to get up and come take a walk with him and Hershi, that it would make me feel better. My legs, although I could move them, felt as if I was walking through sand: so much effort just to take a few steps.

I went on WebMD’s symptom checker and the thing that constantly came up was “functional neurological disorder” i.e. I was a crazy person and my insanity about my perceived illness was causing my symptoms. I don’t trust most doctors due to several things that happened in my past, especially general practitioners, so I didn’t think to go to the urgent care clinic or the emergency room and spend thousands of dollars just to be called a nut job.

I called my mother, who then told me a horrible story about my uncle who received a “bad batch” of a vaccine and who had leg numbness for several days back before I was even born. She told me if it hadn’t been refrigerated properly that was probably what caused it.

The next day was somehow worse. My short-term memory was completely shattered, I would leave a room and then come back in and not remember what I was working on. I became extremely depressed and irritated, especially when trying to take care of a puppy and go to work in such a condition.

A week before my scheduled second shot, I finally emailed my doctor whom I’ve seen for roughly 8 years, telling him about these neurological symptoms and problems that I was experiencing, and I told him all the research I had done on functional neurological disorder. Full disclosure he is both a psychiatrist and a neurologist, so I thought of all the people to trust it would be him.

He wrote me back and told me “Don’t get the second shot without seeing me first” I thought that was such an odd response, but I did what he told me to do, and scheduled my appointment and waited.

I began to think I was crazy, and maybe Webmd was right until my husband went to get his second shot. He said to me “Is this what the leg numbness feels like? I feel like I’m walking on sand.” I said, “Yup that’s it!”

I finally saw my doctor, who practically yelled at me not to get the second shot, I’ve never actually seen him this upset. He told me that he saw a number of his patients with strange neurological issues after taking the shot and that he was not getting it no matter what. I told him about the pressure I was getting from work to go along with this, that I’ve read about many people who have lost their jobs because their excuses weren’t accepted.

He told me that there was a lot of pressure right now. In fact, he wasn’t writing any of this down because he didn’t want his colleagues to see it. He told me that he would write me a note for work but to keep in mind that I can find another job, but I can’t always regain my health once it’s been damaged.

I asked him what he thought this was, and he told me that his best guess is that the spike protein in the vaccine was acting like a prion disease in some people, basically that it was traveling up inside people’s brains and causing the proteins in the brain to fold.

The more I researched prion diseases the more scared I became. Would this progress further? Would I lose my mind?

It was a long, long recovery. My husband and I would take our dog to the park, and I would walk and then once the out of breath, tightness in chest feeling came upon me I’d have to sit down on a bench. He was my coach, my biggest cheerleader and he truly lived up to “in sickness and in health” long before we were even married.

My legs became less weak every single day, and one day as if a miracle happened my memory became sharper, and finally, roughly 8 months later I had for the most part regained all of my health, and so had my husband.

Doctors still don’t know what happened to me, but I read an article recently about “long Covid symptoms” in some people who receive the vaccine.

Today I’m healthier than I’ve ever been before. My husband and I welcomed our first child, a daughter, and after her birth, I lost twelve pounds. I know now to never take my health for granted because it can be taken from me in an instant, so prioritizing my health is important to me.

I’m grateful to have survived the Covid vaccine because I know that others didn’t. I still worry about my husband, but so far, we are healthy. And we both are working hard to keep it that way.