Connect
← Return to COVID vaccines and neuropathy
Discussion
Comment receiving replies
Hi @athenalee I am sorry to hear your neuropathy symptoms have increased. Seems many people experience different symptoms with the vaccine(s). All I know is I am trying to avoid an exacerbation of my neuropathy symptoms by waiting for more information as it becomes available. Since this vaccine was approved as an emergency medication I am being cautious. Whatever antibodies(good or bad) it creates in our bodies we are stuck with them. There is no reversal and no legal action a person can take. I do not want to take a chance on worsening neuropathy when my risks are low for contracting the virus. I understand the vaccine provides protection from severe symptoms. Funny, I always thought that a vaccine gives you immunity to a disease. Clearly that is not the case for the covid-19 virus. We can see on Mayo Clinic Connect many members are desperately trying to find ways to decrease their neuropathy pain. I am sorry to hear they found the reverse. I wish everyone all the best and hope their neuropathy symptoms return to their normal. Toni
Replies to "Hi @athenalee I am sorry to hear your neuropathy symptoms have increased. Seems many people experience..."
There are different definitions of immunity in the medical field. I believed “immunity” to a disease would mean you cannot become ill from that disease. Apparently there are different levels of immunity. With the covid-19 virus I was thinking of “sterile immunity” where a person cannot become ill. What is reachable with the covid-19 virus is “functional immunity”. As an article from Advisory Board describes it....While people who develop this type of immunity could become reinfected with the pathogen at a later date, they would experience a milder, shorter infection.
"It may be possible to become infected again, without any change in the virus," said Christian Drosten, director of the Institute of Virology at Berlin’s Charité University Hospital. But "[t]he resulting infection will be mild or asymptomatic, with significantly lower levels of virus replication and onward transmission."
I believe each person has to weigh their exposure risk to their potential health symptoms after receiving the vaccine(s). If a person wants to be in crowds then perhaps that person will want some protection from the virus and to risk increased symptoms from the vaccine(s) like the increased neuropathy pain. It is a personal choice. Unfortunately it is not a one time shot of the vaccine to keep that protection. Also, new vaccines may need to be developed for any new strains in order to gain that protection. The mRNA is all new technology never been used before. The long term effects of the vaccines at this point remain unknown.
Connect
@avmcbellar- There are a lot of rumors and misinformation around concerning the vaccines. They were approved on an emergency basis in the US. The reason that they were approved on an emergency basis was that the trials were so successful in the early stages that instead of letting so many people more die, they were approved. The vaccines are 100% safe and extremely effective, according to experts such as our own Dr. Gregory Poland.
There are some people whose underlying disease see exacerbations, this is true. Having neuropathy puts you at a higher risk, not lower, for contracting COVID-19 or its variants. Right now The Kent Variant (from Britain) is the most prevailing COVID-19 variant and is much stronger than the original COVID-19. Waiting to see if this will change again, in the future might be like going to a card reader. No one can tell you what effects any vaccine ever produced will have on you. What Dr. Poland has said is that you will not be hospitalized and you will not have a severe illness. Vaccines do give immunity to disease but never has anyone said that it is 100% succeeful, about any vaccine!
The vaccines do not make antibodies in our bodies. We do, at their direction. COVID-19 vaccines send a message for our bodies to do this. There are no viruses in the vaccines.
Today is my second vaccine shot. Am I apprehensive, of course? But for the sake of my health and for those I love and for those around me I am having it.
I love what Dr. Poland asks, "Would you barrel down a highway without seatbelts, good tires, brakes, and airbags?" Of course, you wouldn't. But this is what you are doing by not getting the vaccine. You are also taking a chance of infecting others as well as yourself and being hospitalized or dying.
We all want herd immunity, but unless about 75-100% of the population has the vaccines the virus will just continue to mutate and the variants will continue to become more powerful and we will be back to square one, needing another type of vaccine. Each variant is stronger than the one before in its quest to survive. By not being vaccinated we are allowing this and risking the health of everyone your love and your community.
I have reams of underlying conditions as well as an autoimmune disease and lung cancer (for the past 23 years). Of course, I'm apprehensive that my immune response won't be what I want. But to me, it's better than living whatever time I have left without my family and my small community. My cancer has sure squelched my freedom, and this past year has been horrendous. This is not the way I want to live the rest of my life.
Viruses can't mutate if they can't replicate. Vaccines prevent this.