I've had a bit of a worrying development since I had my first dose of the Pfizer vaccine two weeks ago. Around 48 hours after having the jab, I started developing a niggling pain just under my left ribs and left shoulder blade. I didn't think much of it at the time, as I thought it may just be some minor side-effects from having the vaccine. As the week progressed and I got to last weekend, the pain under the ribs had stopped, but the pain under the left shoulder blade had worsened. It got so bad that, by Monday, I had to be sent home early from work as I could no longer bear any weight in my left arm. By Wednesday, I was having quite a few spikes of pain under my left ribs again, leaving me little choice but to contact NHS 111. After describing my symptoms, they referred me to my nearest A&E hospital, (Bedford South Wing). After several hours of tests and an X-ray, they have diagnosed me with a potential blood clot, which I am now awaiting a CT scan to confirm for definite while taking blood-thinning tablets. As of now, my condition has returned to about where I was a week ago, so it's subsided a little but still fairly uncomfortable. I'm hoping desperately that, if I do have a blood clot, the blood-thinning tablets help to clear it.
Now of course, for the fact I had the Pfizer vaccine rather than the AstraZenica, I can't directly blame the vaccine for what has happened. There is a reasonable chance that I was unlucky enough to have potentially developed a blood clot that had nothing to do with the vaccine. However, for the fact any symptoms I've had over the last two weeks started 48 hours after having the vaccine, I can't shake the thought that it may have contributed to this (I'm going to guess that any vaccine has a very small chance of causing a blood clot, but the AZ vaccine has a slightly higher chance again due to the design of the vaccine itself). As such, despite how important it is to have both doses of the vaccine, it's making me feel rather concerned about the idea of having my second dose, in case I end up going through all this again...