Michelle Chason, a reiki teacher in Tallahassee, Florida, was diagnosed with COVID-19 on June 15, 2020. First, she developed a dry mouth. Then came the unpleasant spells of vertigo that led to revolving and dull rooms.
Chason tested negative a month later, but still didn’t feel well. The left side of his face tingled. He felt chest pain, had debilitating brain fog, and began to experience short-term memory problems. Four months after his initial diagnosis, in October, Chason’s doctor told him he was suffering from a long COVID.
When the vaccines began to roll out, Chason planned to wait to see how other long-haul carriers reacted before rolling up their sleeves. But on February 10, his doctor offered him the Pfizer vaccine and he was shot.
Four days after the first dose, Chason said, the symptoms (dizziness, nausea, loss of appetite, chills) struck like lightning. “I went through all the things I dealt with since I had COVID,” Chason said.
A few days later, the vast majority of her long symptoms of COVID (brain fog, chest pain, and face tingling) disappeared. “I am better, I feel better. I’m not 100% from the days before COVID, but I’m close, “Chason told HuffPost.
Around the world, many other people with long-term symptoms, a disease that is now clinically defined as post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2, or feed – have reported similar experiences after receiving a vaccine.
A recent informal survey of Survivor Corps, a community of COVID-19 survivors on Facebook, found that 36% of people with long-term symptoms noticed improvements in their condition after vaccination. About 50% remained the same. Others unofficial surveys they have also estimated that about a third of patients with long COVID feel better after receiving a vaccine.
At the same time, many others with PASC are hesitant to get vaccinated, worried that the shot could exacerbate long-distance symptoms. They worry about being hit with side effects in addition to the devastating long COVID pain.
In general, vaccines do not appear to worsen the long-term symptoms of COVID. Johnson & Johnson trials enrolled several people who previously had COVID-19, and these people did not have a reinflammatory reaction or a particularly worse effect, according to F. Perry Wilson, a Yale Medicine physician and researcher at the Yale School of Medicine.
But doctors know very little about PASC and how people with this disease can respond to a vaccine. Thus, while it appears that the shot could improve long-term COVID symptoms in a small group of people, much of what we know today is based on anecdotes.
How long COVID works and how vaccines can affect it
“We don’t know who gets PASC, who avoids it, what exactly causes it, or how to effectively diagnose it,” he said William Li, vascular biologist and medical director of the Angiogenesis Foundation. Without these answers, it is difficult to see clearly how vaccines affect long-distance carriers, for better or for worse.
He told her that researchers have analyzed some theories about what is happening with PASC. The first is that the virus can damage tissues.
“Maybe the virus hit you and it will last a while,” Wilson added. Some researchers think inflammation may continue, and a third theory is that people with PASC have nerve defects.
The end theory in operation is that long-haul carriers may have pieces of virus hidden in the body. These viral bits probably could not be detected in a PCR diagnostic test that is often used to diagnose COVID-19, which makes sense since most patients with PASC test negative, but these viral remnants can cause symptoms.
If this turns out to be the case, a vaccine can activate the immune system enough to eliminate the virus lurking and restore things. “We can’t explain it yet, but it suggests that boosting the immune system may make a difference for some long-haul carriers,” Li said.
Wilson said it is also entirely plausible that PASC symptoms will improve over time, and since these patients have had symptoms for some time, they may coincide with improvements at the time of vaccination.
There is still much to learn about long COVID and vaccines
We need a lot more testing to find out why some people never fully recover and if and how vaccines can help.
“More research is needed on this phenomenon, but observation may be an important clue on how to treat PASC,” Li said.
The National Institutes of Health were launched an investigation in February to study long COVID. And as long-haul carriers receive more vaccines, doctors will have a better idea of whether the shots could be used as a possible treatment for PASC.
As for now, most doctors recommend that long-haul carriers move forward and get the shots. Tests show that vaccines are safe in a wide variety of circumstances.
“Maybe there’s a chance it will even benefit them, but it’s likely to go well,” Wilson said.