PMR and Covid vaccinations

[penloppy]

my pmr started shortly after my Covid vaccination and I’m curious about any possible links

[123-go]

Hello, penloppy. There has been quite a lot of discussion on this. Here is just one link to similar questions found in ‘RelatedPosts’:

healthunlocked.com/pmrgcauk...

[Seacat30]

If you Google you will find various medical research articles on the subject.

[PMRpro Ambassador]

It isn't just the Covid jab that can trigger the immune system into going haywire and causing PMR symptoms. People say it started after their flu jab or the shingles jab, and the Zostavax shingles vaccine lists PMR as an adverse effect. But it can equally well start after the diseases the vaccination is aimed at protecting against - flu or shingles.

PMR etc are likely triggered when the immune system has been overloaded but there is no single factor, it is an accumulation of insults or stresses on the immune system over your life - illness, injury, environmental or chemical stresses, emotional or mental stress, overwork or overdoing things physically can all have an effect. Eventually something is the straw that breaks the camel's back and it crashes,

In your case it might have been the Covid jab - but for the vast majority of members of this community it definintely wasn't, but something else.

[WaltzG in reply to PMRpro]

How interesting that Zostavax lists it!

[PRL1957 in reply to PMRpro]

Hi, PMRpro,

While the 'camel's back' mechanism seems correct (hence, pmr and other autoimmune conditions become more common in older people), is anything known about what performs the 'arthroplasty' to fix the camel's spine - that is: allowing people to recover from their AI condition?

Also, my recent infective insult (which seems most likely to be covid) has not caused me to flare.

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to PRL1957]

No idea - nor does anyone else because if they knew that they could work on a cure

[Turtel]

hi my PMR started in January 2020 after my first covid vaccination and got worse with each one, by my third one I was unable to walk properly, in constant pain dr said oh it’s anxiety and depression, so in October 2021 I lost my temper dr saw me and took bloods immediately, one hour later phone call with results, sorry you appear to have PMR steroids waiting at pharmacy take immediately etc etc.Last year another dr said PMR was the result on covid injections and I believe this.

[Seacat30 in reply to Turtel]

Typo on your dates? There were no Covid vaccines in Jan 2020. The epidemic was only just starting then.

[Turtel in reply to Seacat30]

sorry, 2021.

[PRL1957]

Hi, Penloppy,

Yes - my pmr also started in response to my first two (Pfizer-BioNTech) covid vaccinations, with the pain and loss of mobility appearing just after my second injection.

I know that was the cause, because I had been (and still am) monitoring my temperature daily as a check on whether I have been infected with anything. It responded in the form of a small but consistent rise that started after my first injection and accelerated after the second, up to around 0.6°C above my normal temperature.

What PMRpro has said about the various potential causes of pmr is true. Pmr also happened before covid or covid vaccinations were around, but the huge numbers of people receiving the covid vaccinations means that the small fraction of adverse reactions represents a considerable number of unfortunate people (like us).

During a recent consultation, my rheumatologist confirmed that he and his colleagues have seen pmr cases that appear to be linked to a (covid) vaccination, and I have seen a number of similar reports in the scientific and medical literature.

What I am still trying to understand (based on literature, rather than my own work) is whether the widespread use of RNA vaccines (in UK) poses a greater risk. It appears that RNA can activate the immune system directly (as well as via the protein it is supposed to code for) and that can cause autoimmune reactions.

[Seacat30 in reply to PRL1957]

It was AstraZeneca (not RNA) that set me and another local friend off with PMR.

I am interested in whether there are now lots more younger PMR patients who are being denied because of their age due to the Covid vaccines being given to a much wider age group than the 'traditional' PMR triggers such as the flu vaccine?

[PRL1957 in reply to Seacat30]

Hi, Seacat30,

I think rare cases of blood clotting were found to be the main problem with the AZ vaccine, which might be due to an adverse reaction of the adenovirus carrier for the covid spike RNA. But it is an interesting question regarding younger people being vaccinated against covid, compared with flu etc.

I know some cohorts of younger, healthy people do receive regular vaccinations, e.g: NHS employees. But those numbers might still be too small to show up statistically significant trends.

Children also receive various vaccinations without widespread adverse effects being reported, but age-related differences in their immune systems might affect the outcome.

[WaltzG]

Hi yes my pmr started 4 days after first covid vaccine. There is a lot of evidence now that the vaccine can cause it.

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to WaltzG]

No - that the vaccine, like other vaccines, can be the final trigger. That isn't the same thing.

[WaltzG in reply to PMRpro]

I would be interested in a percentage comparison between incidents of pmr from the flu vaccine and the covid vaccine?

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to WaltzG]

Who knows - I would think probably similar but the same percentage of a relatively small number is an awful lot less than that of a very large number. Loads of people don't get the flu jab.

[PRL1957 in reply to PMRpro]

Yes - the risks of adverse reactions from covid vaccines and other vaccines are small. If there were larger risks, they are likely to be found out in stage 1 or 2 trials and development of that vaccine would stop.

Whether it is due to differences in risk or the large numbers of people recently vaccinated against covid, the medical literature contains many reports of adverse autoimmune reactions following covid vaccinations. I am suspicious that there may be a difference in the risks between 'conventional' protein- or virus-based vaccines and the new emulsified RNA vaccines (such a the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech covid vaccines).

The RNA is supposed to code for the production of a protein (e.g. the covid spike protein), which is supposed to prime the immune system. One problem is that the RNA can also stimulate the innate immune system directly by interacting with various 'toll-like receptors', which may be the trigger for autoimmune conditions. This appears to have been observed over 20 years ago (in mice), when RNA was first explored as a thereputic agent, and has led to modified bases (e.g. psuedouridine) being used in the RNA vaccines, to suppress this.

Another problem may be that the various surfactants required to stabilise the rather unstable RNA may trigger the autoimmune reaction.

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to PRL1957]

Traditional vaccines also stimulate a response from the innate immune system. We do hear from patients who had no problems with the ordinary flu vaccine but have problems with the one for over 65s which has an adjuvant in it. I certainly reacted differently to the bivalent mRNA vaccine - but not with PMR symptoms.

[ab58sf]

I think the original Covid vaccines triggered my PMR. I was very healthy prior to that.

[ab58sf]

Has anyone heard of taking Ivermectin or Low Dose Naltrexone to eliminate spike proteins from our bodies?

[PMRpro Ambassador in reply to ab58sf]

That has nothing to do with PMR.

[PRL1957 in reply to ab58sf]

I have heard that some people at the start of the pandemic thought ivermectin might help against covid in some way. So far as I know, objective medical studies were carried out, but found no evidence for any benefit.