Guillain-Barré syndrome after vaccination

In 1976 (March 24) President Ford Orders Swine-Flu Shots for all 220 million Americans.
Short after the vaccination people developed the Guillain-Barré syndrome, a paralyzing nerve disease.

What is the risk of this new Flu Shot?

reply to post by hawk123


And that disease is a bitch. The trouble is that GB syndrome can also be caused or come on shortly after having the flu. It's a double barrel and the second barrel is the worst.

I too am curious about the likeliness of developing Guillain-Barré after a flu shot. My wife became a physical therapist because she saw how much therapy helped her great grandfather recover from the disease. He developed Guillain-Barré after taking a flu shot. Additionally, she currently has a patient who developed a very debilitating case of Guillain-Barré after receiving a flu shot. Her patient is a farmer and has been forced out of working the only job he has ever known due to the illness. Any Docs or Pharm Ds. out there know the percentages on this?

Originally posted by hawk123

In 1976 (March 24) President Ford Orders Swine-Flu Shots for all 220 million Americans.
Short after the vaccination people developed the Guillain-Barré syndrome, a paralyzing nerve disease.

What is the risk of this new Flu Shot?

Not all those vaccinated acquired this syndrome. I got this vaccine after watching President Ford getting one on live TV. Fortunately, I didn't get sick from the vaccine, but a lot of people did, and developed Guillian Barrie syndrome.

File this under "odd things which happen too frequently to be coincidental." I had never heard of GB before last week. I saw mid week last week that former Chicago Bear defensive end/gimmick play running back William "Refrigerato" Perry was hospitalized and in bad shape with GB, and now less than a week later I read about the disease for the second time in a situation seemingly completely unrelated.

Sometimes I wonder if life really is just one big dream taking place inside my head while I sleep.

Aha, Finally a reason to bring up my story! It's an odd one so I hope I can get a reaction from it. And please try to believe me/

My name is Ryan Pulsifer, I live in Nova Scotia, Canada.
I too, acquired GB after getting a flu shot.
I was diagnosed about a week after getting the vaccine. Because of the rare nature of GB doctors in my rural area were not familiar with the syndrome. I was diagnosed, via spinal tap, about an hour before being rushed to the hospital to be put on life support.
The strange thing about this terrible event in my life is the fact that I acquired the syndrome the morning of my 18th birthday!
I woke up around 8:00 with a tingling sensation in my toes and double vision, I had to wait at the out patient clinic for about 7 hours before they could do anything for me, the nurse just kept pumping me full of morphine to keep me calm as I slowly lost the ability to move.
I was diagnosed with the miller-fisher variant of GB ( a rarer variety). I was given some medicine called IVIG, which took about 5 days to work,
and was on life support for two weeks. I then slowly regained the ability to breathe on my own and some muscle control. after another two weeks of recovery and agony at the rehab I was able to go home.

Oddly enough, a couple days before my birthday I was also diagnosed with bells palsy, which went away once I acquired the GB. The doctors think this along with the flu shot may have triggered the syndrome.

On top of that, the strangeness continues... A few months ago I went back to the same hospital to visit a lady I had heard about who was there suffering with GB. A mother of a 12 month old son, she lives about 5 minutes down the road from my house. She too, was diagnosed with GB on her birthday! (her 31st). The odds of this happening are staggering.

My sense of reality has been shattered since this happened to me, I still don't know what to think.
I have reoccurring nightmares of my time in the hospital. The pain I experienced while my nerves regenerated was so intense I would never wish it on anyone.

From what I have read the odds of getting GB are 250 000- 1 000 000 (seems to vary depending on source) I wish I could calculate what the odds are for something that rare to happen on my 18th birthday. And also, for it to happen to someone so close to me, and on her birthday!... its surreal.


** PLEASE CONSIDER THE ABOVE WHEN LINING UP NEXT TIME FOR YOUR YEARLY FLU SHOT! ***

I forgot to add.
Based on my experience I recently thought that maybe there could have been some sort of environmental cause for my GB? I know that there is a lot of evidence that leans towards the flu shot but the odds of what happened to me and the lady down the road are staggering.

I am anxious to get some feedback and hope to see some contribution.

Thanks!

I remember that time very well.

My children and I took the flu shots.

I was told by a nurse to not take or give my children aspirin after getting the shots or at any time in the future if I thought they had the flu. She advised that it could bring on GB.

That's when I stopped using aspirin at all and have not used any since.

When I was a child my mom raised my brother and me with plenty of ex lax, aspirin and Vick's salve. We had no ill effects from it.

Does anyone else remember the warning about aspirin and the flu shots?

reply to post by Snozaz

I have the chronic version of GB, CIDP-Chronic Imflammatory Demyelinating Polyraticulatingneurophy. It is classified as a rare and orphan disease affecting 1 in 100,000. I live in a small mountain village of less than 4,000 people and it has two (2) cases, me and a girl i went to school with. The disease has made both of us homebound. I too underwent the IVIG treatment. Every other day I was checked into the hospital and spent the entire day on IV drip until i had an allergic reaction to the medicine, at which time treatment stopped. This disease is the closest thing to hell on earth, unending pain and torment. Roger Zelazney wrote a sf story decades ago about a man who pissed off a god, entitiled "I have no mouth and I MUST scream!" The only way to live with this disease is to live outside it.

Originally posted by aero56

Originally posted by hawk123

In 1976 (March 24) President Ford Orders Swine-Flu Shots for all 220 million Americans.
Short after the vaccination people developed the Guillain-Barré syndrome, a paralyzing nerve disease.

What is the risk of this new Flu Shot?

Not all those vaccinated acquired this syndrome. I got this vaccine after watching President Ford getting one on live TV. Fortunately, I didn't get sick from the vaccine, but a lot of people did, and developed Guillian Barrie syndrome.

Yea right they probably just injected him with IV fluids.

reply to post by hawk123


Here is an actual old academic study addressing the possibility of increased risk of developing Guillain-Barre after swine flu vaccination:

GUILLAIN-BARRE SYNDROME AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO SWINE INFLUENZA VACCINATION IN MICHIGAN 1976-1977

According to this study THERE IS INCREASED RISK of developing Guillain-Barre after swine flu vaccination...
Of course, this one study is not the ultimate verdict on the subject, and maybe a new swine flu vaccine would be different...
BUT, here is a study to the point of the OP, yupyup