Post vaccination syndrome introduction for practitioners

Post vaccination syndrome refers to the constellation of symptoms experienced by sufferers following vaccination.

• The most common symptoms include fatigue, "brain fog", parathesia, dizzines, and heart issues.
• Most experience multiple symptoms.
• The range of symptoms is extremely diverse. The patient population is highly heterogenous in the combination of symptoms that they experience.
• There may be a relapse/remitting pattern to the severity of symptoms.
• Some/many patients develop new symptoms after the initial onset of post vaccination syndrome.
• For many but not all patients, symptoms dramatically reduce after several months.

Treating these patients can be a challenge because the syndrome is new, there are no established treatments, and the symptoms may be non-specific.

React19 has survey data that covers the various symptoms that patients experience. See https://www.react19.org/post/persistent-neurological-symptoms-patient-survey and click 'download PDF'

Similarities between long COVID (PASC) and post vaccination syndrome

Symptoms overlap heavily between post vaccination syndrome and long COVID / post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC). Patients respond similarly to the same treatments. Because of these similarities, many refer to both patient groups as "long haulers". Both syndromes likely share a common root cause: S1 spike protein. See the etiology page for an overview of the various theories that currently exist.

Biomarkers exist

There are two sets of tests that seem to have high specificity and sensitivity for post vaccination syndrome:

• An inflammatory marker panel developed by IncellDX has found unusual levels of various cytokines in post vaccination patients. These include IFN-γ (interferon gamma), IL-2 (interluekin-2), and CCL4-MIP-1β. The details of this test is described in the paper Immune-Based Prediction of COVID-19 Severity and Chronicity Decoded Using Machine Learning (https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2021.700782).
• Auto-antibody tests offered by the German lab Cell-Trend seem to find elevated auto-antibody levels in long COVID patients. A paper by Wallukat et al. provides data on long COVID patients versus controls (see https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtauto.2021.100100).

Other biomarkers:

• Bruce Patterson's team has found persistent S1 spike protein in the non-classical monocytes cells of patients. Their findings are described in their monocyte paper (https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.25.449905) and in online presentations by Bruce Patterson (https://youtu.be/O_XX9_IujeY).
• Protein sequencing of persistent S1 spike protein seems to find differences between post vaccination patients and long COVID patients. See the discussion at 23 minutes of this presentation by Patterson: https://youtu.be/O_XX9_IujeY?t=1417
• Microclots. The following paper describes the blood clots found in long COVID patients: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12933-021-01359-7 It is unclear if post vaccination patients also have microclots.

Standard medical testing often finds nothing

While long haulers may have abnormalities such as arrhythmias, patients generally report that their doctors fail to find the root cause. At the moment, the condition is poorly understood and there are challenges in diagnosing and treating patients. Nonetheless, practitioners can still offer the following to their patients:

• Long haulers have certain common comorbidities that can be diagnosed and/or treated
• A diagnosis of the patient's comorbidities can help the patient receive access to disability benefits, vaccine exemptions, support from family and friends, etc.
• Experimental treatments. For information on experimental treatments, please refer to the FLCCC I-RECOVER protocol and the additional pages in the downloadable PDF. Also see this wiki's list of experimental treatments. For general practitioners, the FLCCC I-RECOVER protocol is the easiest to follow.

Common comorbidities

Long haulers have elevated rates of certain conditions that can be objectively diagnosed without relying only on self-reporting by patients.

Heart conditions

• Arrhythmias
• Pericarditis, myocarditis

Autoimmune conditions

Long haulers exhibit much higher rates of auto-antibodies than healthy controls.

Other conditions that can be diagnosed and/or treated

Neurological symptoms

For neurological symptoms such as poor concentration, forgetfulness, and mood disturbance, some patients seem to respond to SSRIs such as fluvoxamine. Please refer to the FLCCC i RECOVER protocol for more information. https://covid19criticalcare.com/covid-19-protocols/i-recover-protocol/

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Note that these lists are not exhaustive.

Differential diagnosis

Post vaccination syndrome has symptoms that overlap with the following illnesses:

• Breast implant illness / silicone implant incompatibility syndrome / and ASIA (autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants).
• Chronic Lyme (“PTLDS”).
• ME/CFS.
• Gulf War syndrome, which affects the participants of the 1991 Gulf war.
• HPV vaccine injury.
• Post viral syndromes from SARS1, MERS, Ebola, etc.
• Long COVID / PASC.

Post vaccination syndrome also shares a few symptoms with thyroid disorders, so thyroid testing may be warranted.

Political realities

For non-medical reasons, ivermectin has become a controversial drug. While there is little controversy about off-label usage of ivermectin for scabies or invasive ventilation for acute COVID, there is a political firestorm surrounding the off-label usage of ivermectin for COVID and post vaccination syndrome. Many medical boards, pharmacists, activist journalists, and social media platforms are attacking doctors who prescribe ivermectin or recognize vaccine injury realities. This has contributed to a shortage of doctors willing to treat post vaccination syndrome. Patients and their physicians may also become frustrated when pharmacists refuse to fill ivermectin prescriptions (but see the FLCCC website for tips on finding a pharmacy that will fill the script).

One strategy would be to treat "long COVID" instead of PASC. Existing commercially-available tests have shortcomings in their ability to differentiate between long COVID and post vaccination syndrome. Many long COVID specialists argue that patients should be treated for long COVID even if their N nucleocapsid antibody test was negative. (A SARS-CoV-2 infection can cause the body to produce antibodies against the S, M, and N proteins of SARS-CoV-2. Because vaccines do not provoke the body into producing antibodies against the M and N proteins, the N antibody test is useful for detecting a previous SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, some patients do not produce detectable N antibodies or their antibody levels have extinguished over time.) Due to the current shortcomings of testing, clinicians should not rule out the possibility of long COVID.