I have an autoimmune disease and I got the COVID 19 Vaccine!

With everything my family has been through medically, I weigh every health decision heavily.

I spaced out all vaccines with both my children. I do not give medication freely and instead encourage the innate healing system within each of our bodies. I research every procedure thoroughly before deciding whether to proceed.

My children and I have essentially been homebound since March 2020. I could not take any chances with my daughter’s and my autoimmune disease and my son’s rare inherited metabolic disorder.

I watched carefully as the vaccines emerged, and decided that my chances of ending up in the hospital from COVID infection were far greater than the risk of side effects or adverse reactions to the vaccine. While my adherence to the autoimmune protocol (AIP) has put my autoimmune disease into remission over the past three years, I am acutely aware that an infection can cause an autoimmune flare-up. Indeed, when I came down with the flu in October 2019, I was able to get through the fever, aches and cough on my own at home without medication, but the infection took a toll on me and it took weeks for me to feel normal again.

At 8 PM, which was 8 hours after I got my “jab”, I started to feel the familiar “I’m coming down with something” sensation that I have felt many times before. I had a headache and my joints were starting to hurt. Within an hour, I was in bed with a fever of 102 degrees, shooting pain in my joints (even my eyeballs were sore). The next twelve hours were a blur, with short periods of sleep but mostly a semi-conscious awareness of my joint and muscle pains and of my chills and headache. The acute symptoms passed by late morning- no more fever, no more aches and pains, no more sore eyeballs. Only a bit of fatigue persisted for another 24 hours.

There was one vaccine symptom that lingered, which is to be expected. My arm began to throb immediately after I got the vaccine. The pharmacist apologized because he had trouble getting the needle in smoothly. I couldn’t lift my arm for three days afterward, and two weeks later, my arm is still sore.

I was impressed with the CDC’s Vaccine Tracker app which I signed up for when I got my “jab”. From the day I got my vaccine to one week later, the app would check in with me and ask a series of questions about how I felt and any side effects I was experiencing.

I did have a reaction two days after I got the vaccine. I did not report this to the CDC because this is a reaction that has nothing to do with the vaccine and everything to do with me - and my autoimmune disease. People with autoimmune diseases don’t have weak or under-active immune systems. On the contrary, we have over-active immune systems. At the tail end of every infection I have every gotten - from sinus infections to influenza - I get uticaria (hives). These hives begin on my chest and spread around my torso, up my neck and behind my ears. The hives itch, burn, sting and look unsightly. But, they also tell me that my body has won the battle, defeated the germs - or in this instance, mounted an antibody response to a pathogen I hope to never actually contract.

I got the CVOID vaccine because of the way my body overreacts to invaders. My systemic over-reaction, which produces these irritating hives without fail, is precisely the type of response that could cause a cytokine storm, landing me in the ER with inflammation throughout my body. If I were to become infected with COVID, I fear the reaction stemming from my autoimmune disease would be the ultimate cause of my mortality.

I have no doubt that the vaccine worked and that my antibodies are now high against COVID. My autoimmune disease will always be with me, lurking, waiting for an opportunity to come out of hiding. I don’t want to give it any more reasons to do so than I have to.