A mother has spoken out after her Covid-19 vaccine injury was finally diagnosed following years of chronic fatigue and excruciating nerve pain that was dismissed by doctors.
Ellie Sutton, from the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, told Daily Mail Australia that before getting AstraZeneca shots in September 2021, she was the happiest ‘she had ever been’.
‘I was at the peak of my career, had an active social life and was fit and healthy,’ the 34-year-old said.
‘I did a bodybuilding competition. I loved lifting weights at the gym.
‘I lived in the city and was always jetsetting around doing things. I went to classes, I went to music festivals. I experienced life in all its full richness.
‘I previously always believed vaccines were safe, so when my employer mandated that I be vaccinated or lose my job, it seemed an easy enough decision.’
After getting her second AZ shot in December 2021 Ms Sutton suffered an alarming episode.
‘Not long after that, the entire right side of my body went numb,’ she said.
‘I presented to ER thinking I was having a stroke and they told me it was likely just a type of migraine and to go home.’
Ms Sutton has a Pfizer Covid booster around April 2022 and the unravelling of her life accelerated.
‘I was sitting with my partner of only a few months and complained of a funny little tingling sensation in a small area of my arm,’ Ms Sutton said.
‘He said it was probably a strained muscle that would quickly heal.
‘Instead, over the coming weeks, the tingling worsened and slowly spread up my entire arm, then across my upper back, then down my back, my legs, feet, hands and face until my entire body was covered and incredibly painful,’ Ms Sutton said.
‘The nerve pain progressed into painful spasticity and ‘banding’ where areas of muscle in my body would tense up as hard as a rock, squeeze and stay like that for anywhere from a few minutes to hours.
‘I started having internal tremors, migraines, muscle fasciculations, heart palpitations, food sensitivities, debilitating chronic fatigue, muscle weakness and intense vertigo.
‘Just going from sitting to standing would skyrocket my heart rate to over 200bpm. I started losing drastic amounts of weight very quickly until I was around only 48kg.
‘Every night I went to sleep I genuinely did so with the fear I may not wake up.’
Ms Sutton said the cause of her rapid deteriorating health remained a mystery.
Doctors were mystified or they downplayed symptoms as ‘anxiety’.
‘We saw 40 doctors, countless GPs, neurologists, immunologists, cardiologists, hematologists, rheumatologists,’ Ms Sutton said.
‘I kept being dismissed and gaslit.
‘I had been so conditioned by the narrative we were sold about the safety of the vaccine, that it never once occurred to me it could be to blame.’
Due to her raft of medical conditions, Ms Sutton had to quit work in August, 2022. Finally, two years later in August 2024, a long Covid clinic doctor told her she was vaccine injured, which a neurologist also confirmed.
‘She has been reviewed by specialists including a cardiologist, rheumatologist, immunologist, and multiple neurologists, with no alternative diagnosis identified,’ the doctor wrote.
‘She was diagnosed with monophasic transverse myelitiis …. suspected to be Covid-19 vaccine related given the time course of vaccine and symptom rollout,’ she said.
Transverse myelitis is an inflammation of both sides of one section of the spinal cord. It damages the insulating material covering nerve cell fibres disrupting messages the spinal cord sends throughout the body.
It can cause pain, muscle weakness, paralysis, sensory problems, or bladder and bowel dysfunction.
Ms Sutton said she has recently found some reprieve after coming ‘out of a really dark place’ where she spent months in agony.
‘I finally have a method to control my pain,’ she said.
‘But I am continuing to worsen, I fear I will lose the ability to walk any day.
‘I can no longer hold a toothbrush to brush my teeth. It’s like my cells can no longer produce energy.
‘I am on the verge of passing out. It almost feels like you are dying.
‘Even just having conversation means I have to sleep for hours. I use a wheelchair when I leave the house because otherwise I will collapse.’
The mother of two daughters said at times she has been so overwhelmed by the pain and felt so hopeless that she considered euthanasia but has kept on going because of her children.
She pleaded for Covid vaccine victims to be listened to, believed and supported.
‘We are real people,’ she said.
‘We are mothers, sisters, daughters, fathers, brothers and sons who have been living through the most difficult years of their lives.’
A spokesperson for Pfizer said the drug-maker is ‘deeply committed to the well-being of the patients it serves and has no higher priority than ensuring the safety and effectiveness of its treatments and vaccines’.
‘Since its initial authorisation by (US medical watchdog) FDA in December 2020, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine has been administered to more than 1.5 billion people globally, demonstrated a favourable safety profile in all age groups, and helped protect against severe COVID-19 outcomes, including hospitalisation and death.’
‘The safety of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine continues to be vigilantly monitored through post-authorisation surveillance by Pfizer, BioNTech, and regulatory authorities around the world.’
Astra Zeneca has also been sought for comment.