Dose 1: Pfizer-BioNTech October 2021
Dose 2: Pfizer-BioNTech December 2021
At the time of receiving his first jab, my healthy fifteen-year-old son was a competitive swimmer and had had no major childhood illnesses and had only been to ED once for concussion after a rugby game. Tom received his childhood vaccines, so I am not an “anti vaxxer”, but after having looked into the covid vaccine, I had serious concerns due to it’s experimental nature and from reading reports of officially reported adverse reactions in the US and UK.
I had let Tom know that he didn’t need to receive the vaccine and that potentially it could be harmful to his health and that it was his choice. However, with peer pressure, from friends, teachers and from his swimming coach, and like many teenagers his age, I am sure he felt he didn’t really have much of a “choice”. His father also reinforced his decision to receive the vaccine so he could continue to swim and compete, because of the mandates. So, Tom went with a friend after school in late October 2021 to one of the pop up jab centres at the community hub near the swimming pool, and he received his second jab at the end of the school year in December 2021 so he could compete in the Wellington Regional swimming championships in February 2022.
Tom said that he noticed his heart was fluttering and racing in the weeks after his jab, and that he attributed his heart fluttering to training hard at swimming. He was also unwell with upper respiratory tract infections intermittently throughout the summer after receiving the jabs. In June 2022 he applied for a swim teaching job and had to have a medical as part of the recruitment process. The doctor observed that he had very high blood pressure levels for someone so young and fit. His blood pressure fluctuated frequently over that period, and we consulted a GP but he said it was just “anxiety”. Tom said he was also aware of his heart fluttering.
In October 2022 Tom came down with another upper respiratory infection and cough that was persistent. A couple of weeks later, he was walking with friends in town and he felt dizzy and collapsed on the ground, his heart was racing and his friends called for an ambulance. The ambulance drivers thought initially it was anxiety but then realised he was having a severe SVT attack of 230 bpm. AT ED his blood was taken and his blood test showed elevated troponin levels, he was discharged once his heart rate returned to normal. We asked our GP for a referral to a private cardiologist, and we were lucky to be able to get an appointment soon after. Dr Mark Simmons advised that Tom was probably born with an SVT condition and that if he had further attacks that were debilitating, he could receive ablation surgery to prevent further attacks. I asked about the covid vaccine and its relationship to Tom’s arrhythmias and I also gave the cardiologist information about myocarditis. He advised us that Tom didn’t have myocarditis and his SVT was likely an inherited tendency as Tom’s echocardiogram showed no structural damage to his heart. I was still concerned as there had been no diagnostic electrophysiology to see if there was evidence of an inherited accessory pathway.
After the first SVT attack, Tom’s cough and general unwellness persisted. In February 2023 Tom experienced another severe SVT attack while he was teaching at the swimming pool which he couldn’t resolve with the Valsalva maneuver and he ended up again going to the ED. It took several attempts, but the doctors managed to resolve the 220 bpm attack with the Valsalva procedure. Not long after that attack, Tom woke up with severe swelling of his throat and had a fever and was prescribed antibiotics. We then saw another GP at the after-hours as his throat was so swollen he could hardly talk. The GP referred him to a specialist at ED and he was admitted to hospital and treated with IV antibiotics for acute tonsillitis. His blood tests showed a high CRP, high inflammatory markers and acute Epstein Barr virus. The specialist asked if he had the covid vaccine but refused to acknowledge that my son had been fighting fit and never seen a doctor prior to receiving the covid vaccine. He said the tonsillitis and Epstein Barr glandular fever were teenage related.
Tom has recently been seen by a cardiologist and his opinion is that Tom has teenage onset Supraventricular tachycardia (SVT). In February 2023, Tom also saw an ear, nose, and throat specialist when he was hospitalised with acute tonsillitis and needed IV antibiotics. Tom now has severe anxiety and is currently fatigued, and still has an intermittent cough.
In March 2023, Tom had recently returned to school after the tonsillitis and in the early afternoon while walking to class, he experienced another severe SVT (230 bpm) and couldn’t make it stop. His friend waved down a passing police car and they drove Tom and his friend from school to the ED. The ED doctors were able to reset his heart again by tipping him upside down and applying the Valsalva procedure. The ED doctor suggested that as Tom was having so many attacks close together, he would be a candidate for ablation surgery but would have to wait for surgery on the waiting list in the public health system.
In April 2023, Tom experienced a distressing tachycardia attack one evening and he said he felt he was going to die, and could we go to the ED. When we spoke with the ED Doctor then, he said that Tom was in high Tachycardia and that this time it was not SVT and it was probably a panic attack and advised him to talk to our GP about taking anti-anxiety medication.
We saw his GP again and asked for a referral to an electrophysiologist at Wakefield Hospital regarding the SVT. We had a meeting with Dr Matthew Webber in April who said from looking at the ECG reports from ED Tom probably had “text book” SVT and there was no causal relationship with the EBV and the tonsillitis and his general unwellness since the vaccine. The SVT could easily be treated with ablation surgery, and he advised he would be happy to do an electrophysiological operation and if needed a curative ablation surgery either end of May or July 2023. He also prescribed metoprolol beta blocker drugs for Tom to take if he experienced any further attacks.
Tom tells me he thinks the vaccine may have damaged his heart, but he tells his father a different story. (SVT is a listed adverse reaction to the Covid vaccine in the Pfizer vaccine trial documents). Tom is currently talking to a counsellor regarding managing his daily anxiety. He has since stopped teaching swimming and swimming competitively and currently doesn’t attend school much and worries that he will have further attacks at school. His world has radically changed and he said he is eager to get ablation surgery to make his heart stop racing. We have asked the GP if we could apply for ACC to help with the costs of the counselling and the referrals to cardiologists but haven’t heard anything back from the GP or ACC.
On the positive he has been taking the NZDSOS protocol and nattokinase and apparently his latest blood test at ED showed normal inflammatory, and CRP levels.
The only thing that changed in my son’s life was the vaccine, and he has never been so sick.
Kind regards
Helen