Was there an uptick in autoimmune conditions after COVID vaccines?

@philipnewbury

What is your treatment for Eosinophilic Fasciitis?
I developed scleroderma or diffuse systemic sclerosis post COVID vaccine done in 2021. My condition involves multiple systems: Raynaud's, skin discoloration and thickening, joint stiffness and swelling, inflammatory arthritis, restrictive lung disease (fibrosis of the skin around the lung), and GERD. Joint involvement is not specific to scleroderma and may be a separate condition. All of the conditions are autoimmune in nature and are progressing rapidly from the start, which is not typical for scleroderma. It usually takes 5+ years for scleroderma to go aggressively from skin to other body systems. Another 3 people reported onset of these symptoms post COVID vaccine in Scleroderma-related posts, also with rapid progression in multiple body systems. There is a reason to believe it is due to vaccine.

Please share your current state and treatment. Best of luck.

Gently,
Yes there have been multiple side effects from the COVID vaccine. I had an allergic reaction in 5 minutes; and now have an unnacceptable amount of allergies to chemicals, meds, and especially PEG since that vaccine; and others have some serious lifelong reactions. I am not an anti-vaxxer; but something went horribly wrong for far too many people. If I tell you about it, it will not help. Do the research. It will not show in government program documents. It did save lives, but it wasn’t vetted the way it should have and could have been. An unacceptable amount of damage was done to many people, young and old alike. Admeliora

@altabiznet Cellcept and IVIG infusions.

@admeliora, I'm so sorry you are suffering. And you are right the research isn't reflecting the connections. Even the last big study out of Korea does not indicate that many of the conditions suffered by people who actually had Covid 19 are being experienced by those who had the vaccine.
I consider that most of our medications are not adequately researched before the rush to market. But this rush to market wasn't profit driven. It was a pandemic that killed seven million people. Most of us made the choice not to risk dying after weeks or months of abject misery.
It is known in medical science that our bodies are manipulating the immune system with an inactive virus in the same ways that the active virus activates the immune system.
I had the vaccine the day it became available to me and have had every boost since. I'm grateful that Moderna began studying the vaccine early, before it became evident exactly how miserably deadly the covid vaccine would become.
It's hard to know if you are better off with the side effects; you may never have contracted Covid. My neighbors refused the vaccine; they and all four of their children suffered the virus; two of the children have long Covid.
Rest assured, though there won't be a vaccine for the next pandemic. We won't have to make a choice.

I already had an autoimmune condition prior to getting the vaccine - the first time I got the vaccine I seemed fine. However the first time I got Covid itself, a week later I got my first DVT. Second bout of Covid led to a heavy cough and lung nodules. By the third I was off the blood thinner and got another clot. 4th and 5th - super sick… took forever to get back on my feet. Now I have COPD and a clot in the brain. My rheumatologist describes Covid as having had “devastating” effects on my immune system. I was never able to mount a good response from the vaccine and just got it over and over again which she believes put my immune system into hyperdrive. I now have dermatomyositis antibodies which I didn’t have before along with neurological symptoms which align more with MS but don’t have lesions in my brain or spinal cord. She believes it’s more likely from the repeated Covid infections than from the vaccination. I personally think there are a percentage of people like me who were provoked by the infection itself and there are probably some whom were triggered by the vaccination.

I already had an autoimmune condition prior to getting the vaccine - the first time I got the vaccine I seemed fine. However the first time I got Covid itself, a week later I got my first DVT. Second bout of Covid led to a heavy cough and lung nodules. By the third I was off the blood thinner and got another clot. 4th and 5th - super sick… took forever to get back on my feet. Now I have COPD and a clot in the brain. My rheumatologist describes Covid as having had “devastating” effects on my immune system. I was never able to mount a good response from the vaccine and just got it over and over again which she believes put my immune system into hyperdrive. I now have dermatomyositis antibodies which I didn’t have before along with neurological symptoms which align more with MS but don’t have lesions in my brain or spinal cord. She believes it’s more likely from the repeated Covid infections than from the vaccination. I personally think there are a percentage of people like me who were provoked by the infection itself and there are probably some whom were triggered by the vaccination.

@blinken, I've wondered why there seems to suddenly be so many diagnosed with PMR. Here is an older discussion https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/studies-on-covid-19-vaccine-causing-pmr/
The confounding factor in the rephrasing would be how much of the increase is because of Covid 19 infections.
You might ask how many were diagnosed with autoimmune disease after receiving the vaccine.
Re-asking the question in any form activates more responses.

@pm56
Interesting reading about your history. I had just been reading about my newly diagnosed RA and symptoms. I had just been wondering if when I had COVID 3+ years ago if that triggered my symptoms. My Rheumatologist when he first saw me said that my symptoms looked like they had been around for about 3 years. I never took the vaccine (and will never) as seeing all the serious side effects like blood clots.
This is all very eye opening from reading what might be the triggers to auto immune diseases.