I'm so sorry. I also wish I hadn't gotten the shot and won't be getting the second.

Hello @tcp36c and welcome to Mayo Clinic Connect. I am sorry to hear that your neuropathy seems to have worsened your neuropathy. How long have you had neuropathy?

Hello and welcome to our new group members. I want to tell you all the story behind my decision to be vaccinated because I am encouraging you all to do just that.

It's easy for me to sit at my computer and try to convince you all to continue to finish your shots when I am not in pain nor do I have neuropathy. I chose to be vaccinated against covid-19 because I simply do not want to die. I am a 23+ lung cancer survivor and know that if I contracted covid-19 I'd probably not survive. I know what it feels like to struggle to breathe and gasp for air after my surgeries because of the swelling surrounding my lungs and the injury caused to them from the surgery.

Before more was known about the vaccines I was fearful that they would give me Covid. I also have discoid lupus that has been in remission for years and was afraid that it might be reactivated. My twin sister died from complications of systemic lupus and a long history of drug abuse. I was also afraid that my discoid would turn systemic, which I was told could happen.

But, I went ahead anyway and had my vaccinations. I have PTSD and being isolated from my sister and other family members was putting me in grave danger of further depression from being isolated. I didn't want to live like that. And, after fighting lung cancer for so many years I didn't want to chance being done in by this virus.

When I first had cancer I had to decide how I wanted to live, if I wanted to fight it, would I have radiation, surgeries, chemo, and or other treatments? I made the decision to fight and live the way I wanted to. That meant a lot of life changes including ditching my cigarettes after 35 years, changing my diet, exercising, and many other things. To me not having the full course of the COVID-19 vaccines would be null and void to all of that. And since I had already had made life choices when I first had cancer it was a relatively simple decision for me to chose to be vaccinated, regardless of side effects.

I want you to know that as an honored Mentor for Mayo Connect my job is to offer you support and understanding and present science-based recommendations. I do understand neurological pain. And that the pain of neuropathy can be very debilitating and how difficult it must be to decide to take the chance to increase it or not by having the full course of these vaccines. It's certainly not an easy decision. But this is my ask.

I have posted many times before to encourage you all to be vaccinated because to me taking the chance of surviving covid is not an option and shouldn't be for you. But there it is, the encouragement from me to you: asking you to take a chance with the vaccines and possibly more pain so that you can live among your family, neighbors, and not be isolated. I'm asking you to take the chance of feeling worse because COVID-19 and its variants are killers and the virus is devastating, causing so much bodily damage that all your systems shut down from the lack of oxygen causing great great pain suffering and then you die. It's your decison.

I am so sorry you experienced this too. It's horrible. The covid vaccine ruined my life and completely disabled me. Had the info about adverse reactions and neurological and dysautonomia issues been available and not actively suppressed and ignored, I wouldn't have been talked into it. It has been a year now and I am still unable to do basic tasks or personal care. Can't get a Dr to acknowledge it or do anything about it. Disability is giving me the runaround because the drs won't or can't figure it out bc they won't admit or even consider it was the vaccine despite the many links and studies and the fact that the onset was immediate and nothing changed 6 months before or after. And even if they did, my DDS caseworker already told me he doesn't believe in anything that can be proven definitively, not even cfs and fibromyaligia which I also have and counts as far as SS is concerned as long as it is disabling. I was lied to and coerced into getting it and now that I'm ruined because of it I can't get any help or assistance and I have no recourse since no one can be held liable and the CICP is a joke at best. Beyond ridiculous.