The following are observations and trends I have noticed within my own practice.
Of course we are discussing correlation rather than causality.
There is no way for us to know for sure that these cases are a direct result from the Covid vaccine or having had a Covid infection or just mere coincidence.
Despite that, it is interesting to consider and have intelligent conversations around.
As a clinician, it is imperative that we look at all possibilities and not just blindly follow the current attitude. It is also important to evaluate each case individually as many factors can play a role in how symptoms develop for each individual.
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Second Opinion
A few months ago, there was a clinical roundtable lead by Senator Ron Johnson to discuss a second opinion on Covid-19. You can watch an excerpt of that conference here OR if you are very inspired, you can watch the entire 5 hours by clicking this link:
I present this so that you have access to differing opinions and you can make up your own mind with "the science" and not be over influenced by fear.
At the end of the day, it's your health and wellbeing and nobody is going to be more invested in it than you.
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Clinical Presentations
Tendonitis
A tendon is the tissue that connects a muscle to bone. Simple.
Tendonitis is simply defined as inflammation of the tendon.
Tendonitis is common and the mechanism of injury is very clear- OVERUSE.
If you use the muscle over and over without proper rest and support, it gradually gets tighter and tighter and eventually that tendon will get inflamed and cause pain.
In our office we see very few cases of tendonitis per year. Really, less than ten, I would guess. For those of you who know, that is NOT my normal practice model so these cases are more rare.
Since Covid and the vaccine, the cases keep piling up. I have probably seen a good 10-15 cases in less than 3 months.
What is even more strange?
How long it is taking to resolve them.
Normally, a case of tendonitis resolves in a couple weeks or so.
Many, if not all the current cases, have been months; many over 6 months. And that is without any offending exercise or activity to prevent it from healing.
Even more strange is that they all seem to have come "out of nowhere" and around 3 months following the Covid vaccine.
The most common areas?
Achilles tendon- back of calf or heel area; into the foot as a form of plantar fascitis
Lateral epicondyle- (aka tennis elbow)- outside of the elbow
Wrist flexors and extensors- back and/or front of the wrist
Patellar tendon- knee cap
Unfortunately, "mature tendons are poorly vascularised."
Meaning, the blood supply to the tendon area is poor and hence healing time can be increased.
Okay.
But like I said, in our office, it usually takes a few weeks. But months??!
Something is not right.
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Menstrual Cycle
The number one complaint from women about 4-12 weeks following the Covid vaccine has been irregularity or disruption in their menstrual cycle.
This one is ALL OVER THE PLACE.
Complaints of having no period for months, followed by one every week.
Starting and stopping randomly every couple weeks.
Flow changes, mood changes, pain changes.
Basically everything that can possibly go wrong with a woman's cycle, is happening.
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Poor healing and bruising
This is less common and people mention it as an "add on."
As in, they have a different primary complaint but they "add on," by the way I seem to bruise easier or have bruises that I can't remember where they came from.
And things just seem to take longer to get better than ever before.
Hmmm...
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What could be the reason?
In 2020 there was an article published in the scientific journal, Frontiers in Physiology, specifically Vascular Physiology that talked about how Covid attacked the microcirculation. In this article, it was noted:
"It is evident from the data reported that COVID-19 targets the microcirculation. The microvascular failure is the fundamental pathophysiological mechanism leading the most severe patients to death."
Basically, what happens is, the Covid virus/vaccine seems to target the micro-vasulature. That is your capillaries.
It basically causes little mini strokes via clots in the blood vessels and slows the flow of blood. It also causes capillary "plugging" so that the target tissues cannot get the blood and nutrients they need.
So, if that target tissue is your tendons then your tendons are more likely damaged.
If it's your uterus.
If it's your heart.
If it's your lungs.
You get the idea.
The study also goes on to note that the endothelium gets damaged and it impairs the endothelial barrier.
The endothelium is a thin membrane that lines the inside of the heart and blood vessels.
You can read the article for yourself here.
So could this be the reason so many strange things are showing up?
My guess is yes.
Do I have any proof?
No. But it certainly makes the most sense.
Not trying to be an alarmist but every area of your body requires capillary microcirculation in order to exchange oxygen and nutrients. Food for thought.
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My concerns
I am concerned that my previous post about how 2 years of pandemic stress was going to impact our health and wellbeing may have been grossly under-estimated.
I am concerned that we have not seen even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what possible effects will show up over the coming months and years.
I am concerned that doctors and care givers will forget all about Covid and the vaccines and not investigate the possibility that it may be related to micro-circulation.
I am concerned that we continue to push utilization of this current vaccine when there is no medical evidence that Covid is currently a public health pandemic.
I am concerned we are being told to get a vaccine that we know is not effective agains the current from of Covid virus.
"Our findings indicate that vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease caused by the omicron variant is substantially lower than with the delta variant. After two doses, vaccine effectiveness waned rapidly, with very limited vaccine effects seen from 20 weeks after the second dose of any vaccine."
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What I am doing
Like many of you, I am fully vaccinated. As mandated by the Washington Department of Health. (If you have been reading my blog for a while you know how difficult a decision this was for me personally).
So I have been suffering some of the issues noted above.
To mitigate all this I have decided to support two areas of my health:
viral load of any kind
support proper microcirculation
I am not sure what my metric will be.
I have questions like:
How do I know if it is helping or not?
What am I looking for?
At the end of the day, my decision is based on this:
Who cares?
I would rather take some supplements and change a few things in my diet than risk having more issues later. *
My advice for all of you?
Well, I don't give advice as a general rule.
However, I will say that it is always in your best interest to evaluate your current state of health and what your future health goals are. Based on those two parameters, you will be able to make the right decisions for yourself.
Be willing to look at the information from both sides or all sides as the case may be.
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Personal note
Personally, I feel that we are continuously not given enough information on anything related to this pandemic, including how the virus/vaccine effects our health to possible treatments and support. It is insane to me that 2 years later we still are not told about the treatment protocol but instead just told to "get vaccinated" or "get boosted." That's fine but a vaccine is not a treatment or a cure.
This lack of information and transparency has left not only regular citizens but doctors and care givers in the dark about what they might be able to do about it.
The pandemic got political very quickly and health and wellbeing should not be political. All that does is cause more confusion.
Initially, the pandemic was scary and we were ill-equipped to handle it.
Today, I feel the data no longer supports continued emergency approval of experimental vaccines.
We have to start looking forward to improving our mental health, repairing the damage already done, and supporting our systems and overall wellbeing.
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*If you want to know the specifics of my protocol, shoot me an email and I share. ;-)
Vascularity of tendons:
Microcirculation impact
Vaccine effectiveness
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