Alright, I'm not an antivaxxer.
But my weirdness started shortly after my first vaccine. Actually, it started a year earlier. I'll explain because it's relevant.
About two years ago I had trouble swallowing one night. It felt like there was something stuck in my throat. Food would get lodged and I'd have to swallow a few times to get it down.
At the same time, I realized the following foods would make it worse the next day -- peanuts, pasta, eggs. There would be a lump in my throat different from the dysphagia.
I thought maybe I had developed eosinophilc esophagitis because of the fact certain foods caused dysphagia.
I saw multiple specialists for swallowing and dysphagia, every test I had was negative including a barium swallow and barium study.
I eliminated the following foods from my diet: eggs, peanuts, pasta. The lump in my throat feeling went away but dysphagia remained.
Dysphagia continued for the next year. Experimentation with diet changed nothing.
I was eating a lot of rice and potatoes for carbs, because I couldn't eat pasta anymore.
Eventually I halted eating the rice because I felt it was making dysphagia worse. So basically I was eating only potatoes with my lunch and dinner. My diet is pretty clean, vegetables, some carbs, lots of fish or nitrite-free sausage. I mostly drink water, no alcohol.
8 months ago or whatever I got my first two Pfizer vaccines. First one had no effect, second one made me feel sick for a day... pretty common I'm told.
So, I kept researching obsessively to find out why I couldn't swallow correctly. Remember, every test I'd gotten from a doctor was fine. I found things like cervicogenic instability, atlas misalignment, and some tendonitis somewhere in the throat.
There was one more thing that would make it worse, and that was laying with bad posture (neck tilted forward, like with a pillow when you're laying so you're horizontal). Like image laying and using your phone. When I laid like this, my dysphagia would be worse the next day. This is part of why I thought I had cervicogenic instability or perhaps and atlas problem, or some kind of tendinopathy in my neck. Or ligaments.
I found a study suggesting that patients with a certain type of tendonitis in throat with dysphagia were helped with NSAIDS. They used some British NSAID but since it was an NSAID I decided to try Ibuprofen. For approximately a week I took 3 Ibuprofens 3x a day (a large, but less than maximum dosage dose). I hate Iburpofen because I have chronic tendoniopathy in my knee, and I've heard NSAIDs make tendons worse, but because I read this study, and I was amazed they had benefits treating tendonitis with NSAIDs, but decided to try it. After a week I figured I was taking too much and decided to stop. I only mention this because I thought it might be relevant later.
During this time I was taking a lot of other supplements as well, including:
12mg Astaxanithin
A very small B complex dose
2,000IU D3
D-Limonene
Ancestral Supplements beef organs
Ancestral Supplements bone marrow
21 Wobenzym per day
Let's talk about those last 4.
I've used Wobenzym prior for tendonitis and tinnitis. I never exceeded 3 pills 3x a day. I read about people using much larger doses, and I emailed Wobenzym to ask about this. Upon talking to them, I decided to gradually increase to 7 pills 3x a day. Let me tell you, my joint pain was gone, my digestion was great. My libido was increased. I assumed something might not be right with this, so I researched a lot about these supplements. I found a study suggesting that taking pancreas enzymes LOWERED natural production of them, despite Mucos Pharma telling me they did not, so I decided to stop. IIRC, I cut down to 6 pills one day and then stopped the next day. A few days later, I developed steatorrhea (oily poops). This is a symptom of pancreatic insufficiency, a disease when your pancreas doesn't generate enough enzymes on its own (and you have to take enzymes). I was worried I had messed things up, but within a couple weeks my poops had returned to normal.
Ancestral Supplements bone marrow. I like bone marrow broth. I used these supplements because I thought they might be a replacement. Probably fine.
Ancestral Supplements beef organs. I convinced myself I needed these after reading about them online. I'm mentioning them because I think it might be relevant later.
D-Limonene. All the doctors I talked to said "oh, you have dysphagia? You must have GERD." I don't think I have/had GERD. I read about D-Limonene and decided to try it. I tried the standard dose of 1,000mg every other day for 20 days. No change in dysphagia. I read about how instead of that, you can do 500mg after every meal. I found a manufacturer who made 500mg pills and tried those. No change in dysphagia. My metabolism is fast, I have to eat a lot and I am still slim. I thought maybe it was leaving my system quickly, so I decided to try 1,000g after each meal three meals a day. I did this for a few months. I started to worry I was damaging myself. I did a lot of research into D-Limonene and found basically no toxicity besides in male rats, which have some gene humans don't, so they presumed there's so danger to humans.
Shortly after this, I quit taking EVERYTHING.
About a week after taking the iburpofen (I'm assuming the timeline, might have been less), my pee was a really dark for like a week and I had some back pain. I thought I damaged my kidneys with ibuprofen, EVEN THOUGH MY DOSE WASN'T TOO LARGE.
A week or so later I started noticing mild edema in my calves after wearing socks for the day. Remember, I'm skinny, so this is very apparent.
Remember, I was eating only potatoes as carbs, because I thought rice made my dysphagia worse, and pasta made it worse. This will be important,
So I came off the supplements like I said and started obsessively watching my urine, because it had been the wrong color for a week, and I was having back pain.
Following this, it became foamy.
I know foamy urine is bad so I ordered so labs:
- Urinalysis (normal)
- CBC (normal)
- CMP (normal)
I was like wtf, my urine is super foamy but my urinalysis was normal? I started researching this and found that sometimes no source exists.
I noticed the edema was becoming worse and I was starting to feel bad. I was having horrible charlie horses during the night. I was having muscle twitches. I didn't feel "right."
I ordered more labs:
- Urinalysis (normal)
- CBC (normal)
- CMP (normal)
- Cystatin-C and eGFR (normal)
I started to feel worse and worse. My pee was foaming up the toilet. I started to feel bad after every meal. I mean, I would eat, and then I would feel like I was dying. Lethargy, depression, just awful.
I ordered more labs:
- Urinalysis (normal)
- test (ANR)
- b12 (normal)
- CMP (elevated calcium)
- D (34)
- Magnesium RBC (normal)
- zinc (normal)
- copper (low normal)
The edema in my legs was getting worse. I now had pitting edema. I could press in with my thumb and leave a giant pit that took minutes to resolve.
I knew this, along with foamy urine, was a sign of kidney problems. I saw my doctor who did ANOTHER urinalysis. It was normal.
I had burning while urinating. She sent me to a urologist. No issues found.
My urine was intermittently foamy. I brought the specimen cup home with me so I could get a test from the foamy urine, rather than the urine when I fast for a test at the doctors that was usually flat. Even this foamy urine was normal.
Finally I had a thought.
I remember 7 years ago when I had low vitamin D (below 20) and my doctor put me on 50,000 IU of D2, not D3. I started feeling horrible shortly after doing this. Bone pain. Back pain. Lethargy. I got some blood tests 7 years ago while feeling bad which revealed 10.5 level of calcium (serum). According to the lab, this was the upper end of normal. According to the leading institute that handles hypercalcemia, anything over 10 when you're over 30 years old is too high, and 10.5 is hypercalcemia. I followed up and got ionized calcium blood tests, some of which were very above range. Note: calcium levels (at least how it appeared in my case) varies with symptoms. When I was feeling fine, my calcium would be good. When I was feeling bad, it would be high. I realized during this time that when I ate tomatoes, or potatoes (nightshades), I would feel worse the next day. I figured that this class of vegetable was somehow giving me hypercalcemia. This was 7 years ago and there wasn't much knowledge about k2 out there, although I did find some people who had found similar experiences with D2 specifically.
Two years later when my symptoms were finally gone (it took that long), I decided to try D3 in lower doses. No problems. I believe it's because I wasn't eating potatoes at the time, TBH.
Back to present. I had been eating basically just potatoes and my source of carbs, sometimes sweet potatoes (which are in a different group), and then I had started taking D3. I thought holy cow, I gave myself hypercalcemia again. I had tried rice not too long ago and it was fine, so I quit eating potatoes and started eating rice again.
I ordered some more labs:
- CMP (10.5 serum calcium)
- D (43)
- Cystatin C and eGFR (normal)
Ok, this might explain it.
A few months previously I had started tracking everything I ate and everything I used.
My D levels had gone from 34 to 43 taking an average of 1,300 IU D3 per day over 90 days. This is not a big dose and from everything I have read, should not increase D this quickly.
I immediately stopped taking D3.
I researched what the concern is with potatoes and hypercalcemia. I found some references to it on the internet, specifically concerning calcitriol and how it interacts with vitamin D and calcium. I found a discussion about how back in the day they thought it called "dropsy" which had the symptom of lower leg edema.
So I started taking K2 (MK7 and MK4) and quit taking vitamin D. I even started buying a different brand of almond milk which doesn't include vitamin D. And for some reason, they put D2 in almond milk, which seems to be worse for you.
Slowly, the hypercalcemia symptoms went away. I stopped feeling like death after eating. The lethargy went away. The confusion went away.
The edema remained.
A few months ago, I got my booster dose (pfizer). Within a few days, the foamy urine was worse AND the edema had expanded to my face. I now wake up every day with periorbital edema, and then after I get up it goes away and moves into my legs.
There is one more symptom I need to mention:
I have been having a lot of lightheadedness and low blood pressure. For the last few months, whenever I stand up, I get really dizzy. My blood pressure during this time is 90/50 or so.
I realized I had been eating a lot of olive oil. During a recent bloodtest I had high cholesterol, so I decided to cut some of the fat out of my diet. I quit eating grassfed butter (I was eating a lot) and replaced it with olive oil. Soon after using olive oil, I started getting super lightheaded. I quit eating olive oil and it went away in a few weeks.
I reintroduced it and the lightheadedness occurred again.
I needed a fat in my diet, and didn't want butter, so I tried olive oil. Apparently it doesn't work for me. I decided to try avocado oil instead. I know avocado oil is a product that is faked often, so I made sure to get a recommended brand.
A few weeks after using avocado oil, the lightheadedness returned.
I quit using it, felt better in 3 days.
Started again, super lightheaded every time I stand up.
Stopped using it 3 days ago, feeling better already.
Last symptom:
I have been having trouble feeling like I'm getting enough oxygen. I do not have shortness of breath, I'm not breathing quickly, but I feel like I can't expand my lungs enough. Oddly, it feels amazing when I exhale, but feels uncomfortable when I inhale.
I saw my doctor who ordered a stress test and pulmonary function test.
My stress test returned abnormalities suggesting of ischemia. They said it *may* be false positive and they want to do get the results from the pulmonary test previous to making any suggestions about more stress tests. The lung test is in a few days. I've been having chest pains recently in addition to not feeling like I can breath, and went to the ER about a month ago. They did the following tests:
- chest xray (normal)
- D-Dimer (normal)
- CMP (normal and my calcium was 9.7)
- Troponin (normal)
- DNP (normal)
I am 95% certain my dysphagia is TMS, or tension myositis syndrome (Dr. John Sarno). I have been holding a lot of rage due to shitty roommates, narcissist family, and other stress. I was able to release some of this tension with what I call "rage therapy" (basically recording myself ranting about my roommates, letting out years of rage that I had to keep inside, just putting it all out there, which took a few hours, and saving the file on my phone). Following this, for the first time in 2 years, I was able to swallow food without as much trouble.
Questions:
- Did the vaccine fuck up things?
- Did my crazy combination of supplements fuck things up? (High dose wobenzym, D-Limonene, beef organs)
- Did my hypercalcemia fuck up my heart?
- What the fuck is going on with these new food "sensitivities(?)"? It can't be random, I've recorded my diet for months and certain things make it worse consistently
- Can TMS cause symptoms that show up on a stress test? I'm actually scared of this.
- What other tests should I get?
- Does this sound like anything anyone knows of?
- Olive oil is supposed to be a healthy fat, why does it make me super lightheaded?
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The symptoms match with the time I was taking a lot of supplements AND when I got the vaccine. And the symptoms got worse after the booster dose. The urgent care doctor I saw felt I might have myocarditis from the vaccine, so he sent me to the ER. My chest doesn't feel how it should, I have pitting edema in my ankles and face edema when I wake up. I can't catch my breath. Exercise makes it worse. I lose my breath while talking to people. My pulse ranges from 55 to 90. Bp is 110/70 normally unless I eat olive oil and stand up, in which case it's 90/50. I have heart palpitations. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning I get brainzaps (I'm not on medications which cause it) and they correspond to my pulse (if my hand is on my heart, I have the brainzaps when my heart does a beat). Should I not get anymore vaccines? Should I avoid or research any supplements?
Thanks.
