Acute COVID 19 Vaccine Symptoms:

Some of the known acute Covid 19 vaccine symptoms include: Optical hallucinations, blurry vision, dizziness, anxiety, and sudden onset panic disorders. These are suspected side effects of Covid 19 vaccines—especially Pfizer. The National Institute of Health has termed it Long Post-COVID Vaccination Syndrome that can last months or years. The newer term is Long Vax Syndrome.

My Long Post-COVID Vaccination Syndrome Timeline

The following is a timeline of events that took place during my adverse reaction to either a Covid 19 infection or to the Covid 19 vaccine. I honestly don’t know which. What I do know is that I have had many Covid 19 tests and none of them were positive. I also know that my symptoms occurred shortly after getting Covid 19 booster shots. 

Initially, I thought that my symptoms, such as blurry vision, was simply age related. I also thought that my irrational thoughts (anxiety/panic) were rational. For example, I thought that Chinese hackers were really trying to hack my websites or that simply updating them updating them could break them beyond repair. Okay, they became extreme, irrational thoughts, but when you’re in the middle of a storm, you don’t think clearly.

I only started questioning the possibility that something went terribly wrong with my Covid vaccine after my mother in-law reaction to a Covid infection was extreme anxiety and panic. So much so, that she requested to be committed to a hospital for observation.  That started my investigation to see if my symptoms could be related to a Covid infection. I soon learned that many people have experienced similar symptoms after receiving Covid vaccines and/or booster shots.

Here is a timeline of what and when I experienced the symptoms.  

April 9, 2021:

Moderna COVID 19 vaccine #1. No adverse effects.

May 7, 2021:

Moderna COVID 19 vaccine #2. No adverse effects.

December 22, 2021:

  • Pfizer COVID 19 booster #1. (It’s important to note that I didn’t associate any adverse effects with it until 2023.)

December 24, 2021:

  • The first indication that something was off was when we were taking a nighttime drive to look at Christmas lights. During the trip, I noticed a dark pattern forming in my right eye. I remember that it looked like smoke. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I now know it was an optical hallucination. Fortunately, the severity of the optical hallucinations almost immediately transformed into a milder form of dark shadows that would sometimes appear in my peripheral vision. I honestly didn’t think much about it because they would pass so quickly that I thought it was more age related than anything.

December 2021:

  • My vision became blurry and driving at night became extremely difficult and unsafe. I tried to stop driving at night all together.
  • Around the same time as vision issues, I became a little dizzy—not as stable on my feet. Again, I thought this was more due to aging than anything else.
  • My anxiety increased. It first focused specifically on my vision issues, but quickly became more of a generalized anxiety disorder. I could not think of a single factor that would cause it, so I thought—hoped—that it would simply go away.

January 2022:

  • My generalized anxiety turned into sudden onset panic disorder—primarily focusing on my clients’ websites. This became such an obsession that I constantly worried about security risks, hackers, and accidently breaking my websites and not being able to fix them. Normally, I didn’t care about any of this. If I website did break or was hacked, it simply meant more money for me to fix it, but my panic attacks got so bad that I was too afraid to even go online to update the websites.
  • Because of my panic attacks, I was only able to sleep for an hour or so each night. I would wake up sweaty with my heart pounding. Unfortunately, I was not only contending with my disorders, but now I was also dealing with sleep deprivation.
  • Because of my blurry vision, I had my eye doctor map my eyes. She noticed patches of pail pigmentation in my eyes. Possibly inflammation? She will compare it to my next eye mapping in six months to determine if it’s getting worse. TBD.
  • I started to self-medicate with alcohol. I’ve always been a drinker, but wow! Nothing like this.

May/June 2022:

  • My anxiety and panic disorders would not let up, so I took an emergency leave of absence from my online work responsibilities. Fortunately, graphic design (print) didn’t seem to have the same effect on my anxiety, and one of my long time clients was giving me a lot of work at the time.

August/September 2022:

  • My symptoms seem to be getting better, and I actually thought I would soon return to my online duties. I still had some anxiety, but the more severe panic symptoms were much more manageable. I was hopeful that I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

September 30, 2022:

  • Pfizer COVID 19 booster #2. (It’s important to note that I didn’t associate any adverse effects with it until 2023.)

October 1, 2022:

  • Unfortunately, during the first week of October, my anxiety and panic disorders returned, and I felt that I needed to resign from my online service obligations.
  • Additional symptoms included: brain fog, physically less stable, loss of memory and/or words. I lack passion for work or hobbies. It absolutely sucks!

November 2022 to July 2023:

  • Trying to better understand what I was going through and why, I started researching Long COVID 19 symptoms. Many of the symptoms that I suffered with were listed as Long COVID 19 symptoms, but, as far as I knew, I did not get COVID 19.
  • About a month ago, I stumbled across a couple of case studies about patients suffering with Long COVID 19 Vaccine symptoms, and it seemed to fit me to a tee. Since then, more information about Long COVID 19 Vaccine symptoms has been made available, and I am convinced that is what happened to me. It is too much of a coincidence that my symptoms began a day or two after my booster shots.

I still have some issues with anxiety and short-lived panic disorders, but it seems to be easing up. In fact, over the last couple of months, it has been much better. Almost back to normal, but I having some lingering mental issues mainly with memory and word loss.

August 2024:

  • I will go into it in more detail later, but for now, I will just say that I am 90% back to normal. Physically and mentally I feel much better. Unfortunately, though, the passion and drive that I once had is still missing in action. I am trying different things to improve it, such as this blog, but as of yet, it’s been a struggle. Hopefully, I will soon be at 100%.