New Report Sheds Some Light on Rare Post-COVID Shot Syndrome
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A study from the Yale School of Medicine sheds some new light on the rare, but chronic and debilitating condition some people report experiencing after getting a COVID-19 vaccination.
The paper, which was posted on the preprint server medRxiv and has not been peer reviewed, looked at the cases of 241 people who self-reported experiencing a post-vaccination syndrome, and categorized what they were experiencing.
The five most common symptoms were exercise intolerance, excessive fatigue, numbness, brain fog and neuropathy (basically weakness, numbness and pain, usually in the hands and feet).
The co-authors of the study, Dr. Harlan Krumholz, of Yale School of Medicine, and Dr. Yilun Wu, of the Yale New Haven Hospital, have said they hope their study will inspire more research into this condition and how to relieve the suffering of people who experience it.
Because the paper has not yet been peer reviewed, it should not be used to guide clinical practice.
Ongoing symptoms experienced after individuals have received a COVID vaccination have rarely been studied. And what studies that have occurred have been quite small.
For instance, last year a study funded by the National Institutes of Health evaluated new neuropathic symptoms in 23 people that started soon after they received a COVID vaccine.
About half of the participants showed some evidence of small-fiber peripheral neuropathy; of those, researchers said, most responded well to oral corticosteroids and experienced complete or near-complete improvement after two weeks.
Other participants improved without medical intervention.
If there is a downside to the new study, it’s that its participants were all self-referred, joining the effort through an online portal and all were experiencing self-reported symptoms.
As a result, the researchers said, it is not possible, based on this work, to estimate the incidence of the post-vaccination conditions or who might be most susceptible to the condition.
People with long COVID were excluded from the study, which was conducted between May 2022 and July 2023.
The median age of participants was 46, and the vast majority were White women from the United States.
About half of the participants — 55% — received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and 37% had the Moderna shot.
About a third of participants said they had SARS-CoV-2 infection at least once.
Post vaccination syndrome symptoms manifested themselves within three days of the index vaccination. Symptoms began after the first, second, third and fourth (or more) vaccinations for 44%, 33%, 14% and 9% of participants, respectively.
Participants completed surveys from November 2022 and July 2023, identifying health conditions they felt they were experiencing as a result of vaccine injury.
They were also asked to rate their current health status on a 5-point scale of excellent, very good, good, fair or poor.
The most common prescription treatments included oral steroids, gabapentin, low-dose naltrexone, ivermectin, propranolol and bronchodilators.
The most common non-drug treatments included limiting exercise, quitting alcohol or caffeine, hydration and increasing salt intake, and intermittent fasting.
Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue
