Story submitted by Tiegan’s mother
Our daughter was a healthy, happy 12-year-old with an active social life. She loved school and was in the top sets for her subjects. That was before she participated in a school sponsored HPV vaccination program. Now, our family is living in a nightmare we can’t seem to wake up from.
Tiegan was born a healthy baby. At three years old, she was admitted to the hospital with Guillain-Barre syndrome. Thankfully, she made a good recovery during the space of six months. When she was six, Tiegan was having regular assessments with a specialist who later diagnosed Asperger’s syndrome. This was brought to everyone’s attention because of her anxieties, fussy eating habits and other traits children with Asperger’s share. Teigan’s characteristics of Asperger’s are accepted as part of her personality, so overall she was healthy.
Enter Cervarix. In December 2011, Tiegan had her first HPV injection while at school. That evening she complained of feeling unwell. She described feeling dizzy, having abdominal pain and what felt like a lump stuck in her throat. Her urine sample tested normal. Since she was still happy and active, we were not worried.
In spite of her still suffering from abdominal pains that began shortly after the first jab, Tiegan was administered the second Cervarix injection in January 2012. When she came home from school, she complained that her arm really ached. Early the next morning she woke me because she was not feeling well. She had flu-like symptoms that lasted over the weekend. By the following Tuesday, she was feeling somewhat better but still had abdominal pains that came in waves every 15-20 minutes.
The GP prescribed a course of antibiotics. When they were finished, she was given a second round. Still the excruciating abdominal pain continued. Tiegan became very pale. Her hair would fall out in clumps. She was weak and exhausted most of the time. Her GP referred her to a child pediatrician.
Over the next year, she suffered the following symptoms:
- Joint and muscle pain
- Tingling and/or numbness in her hands, feet, arms or legs
- Twitching, primarily in her legs – even while sleeping
- Frequent urination with constipation
- Recurring headaches and sore throat
- Rapid heartbeat and episodes of dizziness or feeling faint
- Difficulty breathing
- Struggles to fall asleep, but always tired
- Frequent nausea
- Back pain and abdominal pain
- Irregular menstrual cycle
As one can well imagine, having the symptoms above for over a year would cause a lot of anxiety and depression for an adult. Think of what it would do to a young teen. Tiegan stopped seeing friends. She quit doing all of the activities she once loved. She no longer likes to leave the house.
She has had several hospital appointments. Each one begins the same way. The physicians who see her ‘suggest’ her symptoms are caused by anxiety. We are reminded that ‘it is common for Asperger’s patients to suffer anxiety.
As a parent, this is particularly frustrating because I know Tiegan’s health deteriorated for months before she started to get depressed. The only anxiety she is feeling is because she is frightened about what is happening to her physically.
It is a constant uphill battle to try and persuade doctors to look beyond the ‘anxiety’ and investigate the cause of her physical symptoms. Multiple tests have been done, but to date there is no concrete diagnosis. We are currently waiting for an appointment with a neurologist. Our hope is that further tests are going to be carried out to try and discover why her bladder is twitching and perhaps investigate the other problems with her nervous system.
As parents, we are very disappointed with the National Health Service (NHS). No one appears to show any concern about Tiegan’s suffering and certainly no urgent need to treat her symptoms.
It feels like every doctor we have seen has a quite cavalier attitude. It does not seem to matter how many times we try to explain how much our daughter is suffering. They seem oblivious to her pain.
It does not seem to matter how many times we try to explain the agony of our family goes through watch our daughter’s health decline while not being able to do anything about it. They do not seem to care what impact it has on our family.
Our request is simple. All we want is for someone to look beyond the ‘anxiety’ caused by the seemingly endless pain and try to find the cause of the pain. Without all of these new medical conditions that occurred after Cervarix, there would be no ‘anxiety.’
All we want is to restore our daughter’s health to what it was before her HPV vaccinations.
People should demonstrate in order to forbid most vaccines, because it’s a murdering swindle !!
And it’s lasted too long , hasn’t it ?
I meant “most” vaccines …
We took the liberty of making the change – hope you don’t mind.
DEFINATELY
My daughter, Emily, has suffered from the same symptoms for over two years now. She was also very healthy prior to her HPV vaccination with a very bright future ahead of her and then immediately after her vaccination she began to be ill, in much the same way as Tiegan – in fact the list of symptoms is uncanny in how familiar it is to us! Emily also suffers from terrible cognitive problems with memory and concentration impairments and it’s as though her brain shuts down after too much stimuli, which can include too much light, noise, conversation or trying to concentrate for too long. Small amounts of physical or mental effort can leave her exhausted and in bed poorly for days.
We also have received very poor treatment at the hands of the NHS. Emily was diagnosed with ME/CFS after 6 months, despite me telling the doctors that the HPV vaccination triggered her illness. That has never been acknowledged or investigated and to my layman’s mind – how on earth can you treat something if you aren’t prepared to look at all possible causes? I remain convinced that if the girls suffering from Post-Cervarix problems were properly investigated, the medical profession would be better placed to offer effective treatment. But the easy way out is to cast them onto the waste heap of CFS sufferers who receive no help and who are treated as psychiatric patients.
We are at the end of our tether with the appalling way in which our daughter has been treated and the brick walls we keep coming up against. Unfortunately, vaccine damaged children are completely ignored and alienated by doctors across the board. If your child reacts badly to a vaccine, you are completely on your own!
I grieve with your family, especially since your daughter was obviously at risk for vaccine injury. Given the strong association between Guillain-Barre syndrome and flu vaccine, it is very likely Tiegan had already suffered a vaccine injury at age 3! Why did no medical professional realize this? The Asperger’s diagnosis was an even bigger red flag. I have only learned these things in the years since my own son was diagnosed with developmental delays, but it is past understanding that children on the autism spectrum should not be recognized as especially and unacceptably vulnerable to auto-immune and neurological injuries from vaccines!
My son has been helped by alternative medicine (particularly by a special diet to identify & eliminate foods that cause his auto-immune reactions). Please consider this in your daughter’s case. Blessings on her and on all of you as you continue to seek healing!
Hi, my daughter also has Aspergers and was very active too, She also has had problems , one after another since she was 12 and a half. Just found the original referral form to the hospital and it states Abdominal pains started one week after the HPV and at the date of the letter she had been having these for 9 weeks by then. She had also been very ill with other effect straight after the 1st jab, so much so that I delayed the 2nd and 3rd and to this day she has not had them. As your daughter she has had the same symptoms plus more. 1st they diagnosed her with Coeliac . Next were the stomach migraines, bad headaches,painful joints and muscles, excessive tiredness, I could go on. Last 6 months everything has got a lot worse, she is now hardly at school at all, hasn’t been there at all since Easter and just been diagnosed with PVFS. I don’t know if the vaccination caused all this but what I do know is that before , one thing she did have was her health. Since the jab, we have had one thing after another, she never ever seems to be well anymore. After reading all your stories I am starting to connect the dots!
THIS IS CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! POOR TIEGAN! BOY, AM I GLAD I NEVER HAD VACCINES IN MY LIFE!!
This is our life. My daughter Teagan had the hpv immunisation in the Nov 2011. She had side effects, shortness of breath, sore arm. She then had to have the next one May 2013 administered at the hospital and was given an epipen as a precaution. Then our hell started. In the summer joint pains started by the middle of December she was admitted to hospital for 5 days as she was unable to walk at all and was in excruciating pain requiring morphine. She was then referred to a rheumatologist as she has HLAB27 in the blood so she was and still is being treated for this although the rheumatologist always said her pain level far exceeded the level of spondylarthropathy was showing on the mri etc.
She spent almost a year on huge amounts of medicines and had the occupational therapist sizing her up for a wheelchair. Things did improve where she was able to move more and come of the meds, then in October of 2014 she started to have tummy issues, belching etc. The GP suggested a gluten free diet for 6 months. By January Teagan had intolerances to milk, soya, egg yolk and potatoes and is vomiting several times a day. She gets incredibly tired and incredibly depressed and last month was diagnosed with CFS.
After reading all of these other families issues I realise that we may now have become members of a new family