After having COVID started having SVT / heart issues

I concur with wcuro. Although early in the pandemic and the vaccinations, it was hoped and erroneously communicated that the vaccines prevented infection, that was then CORRECTED that few vaccines actually prevented infection, rather, they reduce the risk of severe infection and death. Millions of people died during the pandemic, PRE-vaccination. That seems to have been forgotten by people who had complications from the vaccine. The medical community DID recognize the risk of myocarditis post vaccination in a small number of vaccine recipients, after cases started showing up. Those cases were generally mild and resolved spontaneously. The risk of severe cardiovascular complications including myocarditis, thromboembolic events, and arrhythmias is considerably HIGHER in people who survived Covid infections vs. vaccinated only individuals. The risk of death is also much higher. Also, given that Covid infections can be asymptomatic, some vaccinated people who have problems may in fact actually have these problems due to an asymptomatic Covid INFECTION.
I believe some people definitely had adverse reactions to the vaccine. Some of these may be life-altering. There is ALWAYS some risk with vaccinations, medications etc.

@wcuro no, doesn't prevent, but can minimize symptoms even if not the same strain, as is true with the flu shot, I think. Can save lives by not infecting others.

@lindy9 especially Starbucks, I had 2 health professionals tel me that. !

@mercy0000 I lived through the early stages of the pandemic as a 69 year-old male with a bit of life's experience and some modest education. It was clear to me, from government published information and various interviews, that the vaccine was not intended to prevent disease, but was hoped to diminish the deleterious effects that the virus could impose on any one body. The idea, again made quite crystal clear at the outset, was to train the immune response to recognize the antigen more quickly and to mount a rapid defense before the virus load overwhelmed the body, which it could potentially do inside of about five days from initial exposure. I think some people heard 'vaccine' and thought it would be the same as for polio or tetanus.

And yes, if the body was quick to suppress the infection and the other reactions, it might also slow the progression of the disease, its spread, in the general population. Additionally, the vaccine was intended to slow the numbers of people, desperately sick people, who would have gone to local ERs and been piled up in the hallways, overwhelming the staff's ability to treat everyone fully.

@psyche Very good description of the covid vaccine. Also, everybody, please don't forget that the covid virus promptly did what viruses do--it quickly mutated itself so the vaccine became less able to prevent it but still highly effective at keeping people from dying.

Yes! Thank God for it!

@ "When you get vaccinated, you not only protect your own health and that of the family but also you contribute to the community health by preventing the spread of the virus throughout the community. In other words, you become a dead end to the virus."
Quote from Dr. Anthony Fauci

@wcuro Except it's not strictly true. Fauci is being indicted as far as I can tell, and for spreading disinformation the way he did. I don't mean for this to be political, so this will be my last statement in this thread: some vaccines actually prevent infection. Others reduce the severity and hasten the body's immune response. While the body is responding, the body is very much a vector for the virus and begins to 'shed' the virus. Therefore the body's viral shedding can infect others nearby. The idea behind the COVID variety vaccines, all of them, was to reduce the severity of infections in a population and to reduce the severity of symptoms. It doesn't follow that the vaccinated body isn't going to shed copious amounts of virus for others to get infected. It only means that there is a limit to viral effects within the vaccinated body because the body had a 'leg up' on mounting an early defense to it. Bottom line, the COVIC vaccine does not eliminate infection....just minimizes the damage and spread. '...preventing its spread...' is simply misinformation.

Hello everyone,

I would like to step in and remind everyone of the community guidelines (https://connect.mayoclinic.org/blog/about-connect/tab/community-guidelines/), in particular, number six:

6. Keep politics out of the community conversations.
- Do not post political opinions or news. The focus of this community is health.
- Political posts are removed.

This guideline is meant to prevent discussions from spiraling off-topic. However, this topic is a bit more difficult because of its nature and title. Vaccines, like all treatments and prescriptions, can affect us all in different ways. Vaccines are rigorously tested and the statistics of reactions and complications are extremely low and rare. But, they do exist with all vaccines. The goal, as @gloaming mentioned, is to reduce the risk of severity and to protect the population at large, especially those who are unable to receive a vaccine due to an allergy or other ailments that put them at risk.

It is best to investigate these possible side-effects with your provider and discuss the best course moving forward. Some conversations and topics are more difficult to keep politics off to the side, but it is a guideline that helps keep our community safe and civil.

I just read this entire thread and would like to throw my experience and thoughts into the discussion. I was fully vaccinated in June of 2024 with my last vaccine given in Oct 2023. That vaccine was targeted to XBB 1.5 variant. The variant that infected me and millions of others in summer 2024 was either KP1.1 or KP.2. The antibodies elicited by the XBB shot did not provide much neutralizing protection against the KP variants, thus many previously vaccinated and infected people got covid. I have strong evidence that my infection directly damaged my heart. I teach ultrasound skills to nurse practitioners students rotating in my clinic. When I have one student I let them them scan me. I always freeze the image of my parastatal long axis view and point out the basics, like demonstrating the left atrial diameter should be about the same diameter as the LV outflow track. I had a student in April 2024, my heart looked like it always did. Imagine my shock 30 days post Covid, (with the previous 14 days of bendopnea and chronotropic incompetence, culminating in afib) when I saw my parasternal view in the ER and my left atrium was huge. Perhaps I eventually would have gotten HFpEF, mitral regurg, afib, atrial flutter and SVT and pulmonary hypertension, but for anyone to say Covid didn’t cause my abrupt and significant heart damage clearly isn’t paying attention. The day before I got Covid I biked for 5 hours, swam 1/2 mile in Lake Michigan, hiked for 3 miles and kayaked a mile as fast as I could. I got Covid outdoors from a face to face encounter on the week Michigan wastewater was reporting the lowest levels of virus to date. What is interesting is I had a 3 month reprieve from afib and improved exercise tolerance starting 2 weeks after getting the JN.1 Novavax in fall of 2024. I had a 2 breath exposure from a very elderly family member in Jan 2025 who died from Covid a few days later (he knocked off my mask while delirious while I was trying to get him back into bed in the ER). I never got sick and tested antigen negative but 2 weeks after that exposure my afib came roaring back until my ablation in May 2025. That might have been a coincidence. I’m getting my redo ablation in August. I’m a physician. I took care of Ebola patients in 2015. I wear a mask when breathing shared air. I think everyone who has a heart issue should always wear a n95 while traveling, they should use HEPA, and test family for COVID when they have a “cold”. I’m so happy cases are low, but RNA viruses mutate. This antivaccine nonsense is absurd. One of my patients got myocarditis from his 2nd Moderna shots that resolved in 2 weeks. His unvaccinated family member died from Covid prior to the vaccines. Anecdote for sure, but evidence suppressed by the current administration was just published that demonstrated continued vaccine effectiveness. I’m 2 years out from my infection. I can hike 3 miles as long as I keep my heart rate below 92. I can swim 1/2 mile in 45 minutes, it used to be 28 minutes. I’m on spironolactone, apixaban, dapagliflozin and valsartan. I was on 10 mg lisinopril with well controlled BP starting in 2020, had a 20 year history of exertional bigiminy and a normal stress echo in 2014. I’ve encountered health care workers who have been skeptical when I’ve told them my heart damage is from Covid. It irks me, and yes, I reply with my evidence using my big doctors words. No one cares that I wear a mask, and I don’t care if they do. https://apnews.com/article/cdc-covid-vaccine-effective-study-256e61b5ff4fcf3bfecd48826077e389 And the link to the JAMA article https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2850668