Out of curiosity, has anyone had any weird rashes after their vaccine, especially vascular type ones?
As reported earlier my overall experience with Pfizer was unexpectedly good with a temporary improvement in ME symptoms after both shots. But I'm speculating about some skin symptoms.
Around the time of shot 1 (I think after, but not 100% sure) I got some weird rash on my hands of a type I'd never had before that looked most like lichen nitidus, based on comparison to Internet photos.
If that is indeed the correct diagnosis, then Healthline tells us that "The papules are the result of inflammation by white blood cells known as T lymphocytes [... ] No one’s sure why the T lymphocytes become active in lichen nitidus". I didn't do anything about it and it's slowly clearing up now, so just curious if this sort of thing could be triggered by vaccination?
Some weeks after my second shot I got a different rash. This one looks identical to rashes I've been getting on and off these last 2 years and that a GP thought were "some sort of capillaritis". These past ones were very small patches on the inside wrists and conveniently self-resolving. The new one started about 7 weeks after the vaccination near the vaccination site and slowly spread down the length of the arm with a remarkably defined border, almost as if someone drew a straight line with a ruler down my arm. Plus there's a lot more blood leaking out of the capillaries than with the past small rashes. Looks quite dramatic*. A few weeks later additional but milder patches appeared on the other arm and the legs, too, just to confuse things.
I found some case reports online reporting similar looking rashes post-vax. One was 6 weeks after vaccination, the others much earlier (so my 7 weeks would be an outlier if connected at all). Some case reports were linked to thrombocytopenia. That seems an unlikely explanation for me because I don't have any other bleeding and coincidentally had some blood tests shortly before the rash appeared and platelets were their usual low-normal (I'll be tested again in about a month). Just had a thought: the blood tests were done during my regular venesection which was done on the same arm as the vax and the nurse put a pressure strap straight across the vax site on my upper arm. Could that have triggered anything? Can't really see how, a whole 6 weeks after the vax, but who knows.
Anyway, just curious if there's something in the way the immune response develops after a vax that could trigger such vascular rashes in predisposed people (
@Snow Leopard?) so many weeks later? And, though it's clearly not common, if anyone else has had a similar experience?
*I considered posting a photo but I have a feeling militant anti-vaxxers are trawling the Internet and I would hate to see my arm used as "proof" of their claims. With anti-vaxxers I don't mean present company of course. My heart goes out to those of you who had or are having major deterioration after the vaccine. Talk about a choice between pest and cholera when it comes to deciding whether to have further shots! On the one hand there's a risk of further bad negative vaccine reactions but no even half-reliable information on which to base a personal risk assessment. On the other hand the risk of catching the virus itself is higher than ever with the new variants. There just isn't a good solution
