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Comment by thatswrong0 | Hacker News Reader

Anecdote: I had this reaction to the 2nd dose of the Pfizer vaccine, saw a cardiologist and she mentioned that she’s been seeing this quite a bit after the second dose. Have had to lay low for a month, but it seems like the symptoms are finally passing.

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If you don’t mind sharing I’d be curious to hear how you knew something was wrong? If I were a man in my teens or early 20s (or even 30s!) I feel like I would chalk any chest pain up to anxiety or heartburn before I ever even considered the possibility of a heart situation. My understanding is myocarditis is usually not a big deal but it does require treatment and isn’t something you should just “wait and see” if it resolves on its own.

I had this as a side effect of covid last year. You are correct, no medication was given and they won't actually do a biopsy of your heart due to the risk so the will simply wait and see.

It feels like a big deal. I had never had heart issues and it felt like my whole system was unstable. Hard to describe really. I don't know how serious it is, however. The cardiologists just tested my heart, saw that there was no blockage and the blood flow was strong and told me to rest.

edit to add: On the second dose of Pfizer, I felt a minor version of this for about an hour in the middle of the night after a morning shot. No other symptoms beyond a strong immune response.

Good to hear this experience. I also had this as a side effect of a covid infection last year (having never previously had any heart issues). I've just had my first Phizer dose, and this article had me questioning the wisdom of getting the second dose. But I feel like an hour won't do me much harm. It lasted for months with the actual infection.

I call the heart part the bonus round. And same, it took me several months to get better.

I went to the doctor because of general shortness of breath all the time, heart rate spiking during normal activity like standing up, palpitations out the wazoo, and general fatigue. If I felt “sick” or fluish that’d be one thing.. this seemed different.

Anecdote: I too experienced this reaction, albeit after the first dose.

Noticeable but not significant heart pain beginning approximately 4 hours after getting the first vaccine.

Speaking with medical professionals, they said symptoms should improve with time, and they have nearly completely across the 1.5 months since.

Unsure if worth noting, but I had very strong immune responses to both the first and second doses.

Pure, unadulterated speculation:

It felt like the mRNA took hold in both my arm, _and_ my heart. Which given the proximity and paths between, is not entirely surprising.

It felt like the vaccine entered my bloodstream and was taken up, in part, by the heart. Which then started making spike protein and soliciting an immune response.

I'd really love to learn more about this, but haven't been able to find any good resources. If anyone can point me in the right direction, I'm all ears!

This post was interesting to me and would mean that if the shot got into your bloodstream, it could've been mis-administered? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27464226

That is very intriguing.

The location of injection site was spot on. However, I'm unsure if there are other factors at work beyond specifically location

I was also wondering that. There was only the tiniest spot of blood when I got mine.

What kind of symptoms makes one go to a cardiologist? Just curious

I'm 27 and experienced a lot of chest pains and skipped heartbeats earlier this year. One night I stood up quickly, walked a bit then lost consciousness (low blood pressure), hit my head on the way down. I had an ambulance to the ER after that, they didn't find anything wrong during that visit.

I was referred to a cardiologist, had a holter monitor, ECG, and stress test. None of those turned up any issue.

Going by what I've read about this online I suspect I may have had myocarditis from a case of COVID, but I think that would only show up on an MRI, not the tests I got. Luckily the palpitations and chest pain have mostly gone away over the past couple months.

In relation to speculation about COVID and myocarditis cases elsewhere on this page: I doubt my case will be reported because the association between COVID and heart problems didn't seem to be on the radar of any of the doctors I saw.

Arrhythmias are perhaps the most specific indicators that you should see a cardiologist, but chest pain and/or shortage of breath on mild exercise could well be caused by a heart problem. These are some of the symptoms of myocarditis, among other things.

I went to the doctor because of general shortness of breath all the time, heart rate spiking during normal activity like standing up, palpitations out the wazoo, and general fatigue.

I wanted to avoid the second dose but ended up getting it anyways... hope they don't rush vaccine approvals again... might be good in the short run, but if issues come up, it might be bad in the long run.

I had this after COVID in April last year right at the beginning. I suspect it is an immune reaction to the virus not the vaccine itself.

But the Pfizer vaccine doesn't contain any of the virus, unless it's just the immune reaction to the spike protein that causes the problem?

The vaccine produces spike protein and some research suggests that the spike protein itself is the source of vascular system damage. There was a contention that the vaccine spike protein is designed to stay on the surface of infected cells and not freely circulate into the bloodstream in large quantities but we also just don’t know for certain. It could even have to do with how the vaccine is administered and whether it largely affects the lymph system or a large quantity makes its way into the bloodstream.

https://www.salk.edu/news-release/the-novel-coronavirus-spik...

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/05/04/sp...

Derek Lowe has a post that discusses this.

In short from what I remember, the vaccine is administered in the deltoid, so most of the spike proteins should remain there. Some may travel throughout the body, but overall it is much much less than a natural infection.

That’s why I’m curious to compare myocarditis rates after vaccination to those after infection, because from what we know, natural infection should result in a higher rate of myocarditis than vaccination.

Did they ever confirm this experimentally, or it is just speculation about how it should work? It does seem like spike protein traveling further through the body than we thought it would would explain this.

> unless it's just the immune reaction to the spike protein that causes the problem?

If the problem is inflammation then that seems entirely plausible... I thought that an immune response was exactly what inflammation is

But then it would be caused by untold number of things and not marked out as special.

Maybe having immune system working hard somehow naturally puts strain on cardiovascular systems?

A theory (far from proved, but certainly also nothing I'd consider "disproved") is that the spike protein itself may be dangerous, in which case injecting something into yourself that causes your body to deliberately produce it may not be an unmitigated good.

I don't think we have the data either way to be sure the spike protein is completely harmless, though obviously how dangerous it is is bounded by the fact that many people experience no ill effects. (That is, it obviously can't be super-ultra-deadly, because it's not killing everyone instantly. How dangerous it could possibly be is bounded by the fact that many people have received the vaccine.)

Presumably the effect is also bounded by the fact that it can't reproduce.

Wouldn't that lead to heart inflammation with pretty much every sickness then? And given that the vaccine side effects are often less than a common cold, I don't know if that's particularly compelling.

Along those lines, I am wondering how this compares to other non-SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.

Interesting.

It's also anecdotal, but I have a existing heart condition and experienced no such side-effects post-dose (on either dose (Moderna)).

This sounds more scary then covid. At least from the people who told me how was it when they had the infection, four of my friends to be precise. Did you doctor said about any long term issues or it is too early?

The thing is that some cases of COVID can result in myocarditis as well, not to mention other kinds of damage (such as permanent taste changes, lung damage, etc.). Still waiting on the echo to confirm no long term damage. I'm feeling MUCH better now, compared to even 4 days ago.

Whatever the result, I can't say I really regret taking the vaccine because it _is_ somewhat rare, and the long term side-effects of COVID are just as unknown as these vaccine side-effects. I like knowing that I'm much less likely to be a transmitter of a disease that could be fatal to others.

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