Do COVID Shots Make You Unsteady?

4 min readOct 23, 2022

Since the COVID shots, I have experienced numerous weird adverse symptoms including severe headaches, migraines, buzzing sounds, vibrations and intense stimulation. Hence, I had started maintaining a diary of my symptoms. There have been several other reported more severe adverse effects of COVID shots (1 — 4). Lately I noticed a strange pattern. For the past 2–3 months I had chronic headaches that would start off with pounding of vessels in my head and it was mostly localized to the back of my head. It was milder in intensity compared to some of the headaches I had experienced previously, however, it was consistent, occurring almost daily. I had kept a log of headache occurrences in the health data section on my iPhone. The app allows you to keep a log of various health symptoms along with the intensity of some of these symptoms. The intensity of headaches was scored on a 5-point scale: not present, present (presence of buzzing sounds and mild pounding headaches), mild (presence of pounding and pulsating headaches causing soreness), moderate (presence of pounding and/or pulsating headaches or vibrations leading to severe headaches and migraines) and severe (presence of one or many of the following symptoms: intense stimulation, intense pounding headaches, severe pulsating headaches, migraines, buzzing, vibrations). Shown below is a graph of the intensity of headaches over the past six months.

Figure 1: Intensity of headaches over the past six months. Headaches were scored on a 5-point scale: not-present, present, mild, moderate and severe. Not present refers to the absence of all symptoms, present refers to presence of buzzing sounds and mild pounding headaches, mild refers to the presence of pounding and pulsating headaches leading to soreness, moderate refers to presence of intense pounding headaches or pulsating headaches or vibrations leading to migraines, severe refers to presence of one or many of the following symptoms: intense stimulation, severe headaches, severe migraines, buzzing, vibrations.

Interestingly I also found that my walking steadiness had reduced over the past year and a half since the COVID shots. Hence, I decided to also look at walking asymmetry. Walking asymmetry is automatically calculated on iPhone when your health app is setup and your iPhone is switched on during walks and kept at your waist level. It measures the symmetry of your walking steps. Specifically, walking asymmetry is the percent of time walking speed is faster with one foot compared with the other foot. Walking steadiness is inversely correlated to walking asymmetry (illustrated below). Lower the percentage of walking asymmetry, higher the walking steadiness and lower the risk of a fall, indicating a healthy walking pattern.

Figure 2: Correlation of walking steadiness with walking asymmetry. Walking asymmetry refers to the iPhone health app measurement and is calculated as the percent of time one foot is faster than the other foot.

Shown below is a plot of walking asymmetry over the past six months. As can be seen, walking asymmetry has been consistently higher in the past three months (mean = 7.3%) and directly correlates with the consistency of headaches over the three months.

Figure 3: Walking asymmetry (%) calculated over the past six months using the iPhone health app.

For comparison, shown below is a graph of walking asymmetry over the past year. Walking asymmetry for the duration of past twelve months averaged at 4.5% and it has increased to 7.3% in the past three months.

Figure 4: Walking asymmetry (%) calculated over the past year.

Qualitatively speaking, I have definitely experienced more unsteadiness in my steps and balance. At times, I have felt as if I was being pushed, causing me to physically tilt. I had also experienced a fall last year and I have lost my balance multiple times in the past year needing me to hold on for support. I have not experienced any of these symptoms prior to the COVID shots.

The cerebellum is located dorsally (back of the head, figure below). The functions of the cerebellum amongst many is to maintain balance and coordination. Over the past three months, the duration of buzzing and headaches has increased and it is apparent from the flat line occurring from late Aug to late Oct in Figure 1. One of the reasons for the increase in walking unsteadiness could be the increased duration of buzzing and pounding throbbing headaches near the of the location of the cerebellum, whose primary function is to maintain balance and coordination.

Figure 5: Location of cerebellum (source: https://www.neuroskills.com/brain-injury/cerebellum/)

These symptoms of buzzing, headaches, migraines, vibrations and intense stimulation also make it difficult to focus and concentrate, also know as brain fog, a known symptom of COVID (5) . However, I have experienced these symptoms since the COVID shots while I was testing negative for COVID leading me to believe that brain fog is also an adverse effect of COVID shots.

The question to answer is why do the COVID shots cause brain fog?

Prior studies have shown that throbbing vessels can lead to poor circulation in peripheral arteries (6, 7). Could the COVID shots or COVID related brain fog be caused due to pounding and throbbing headaches? Given the adverse effects of COVID shots (1 — 4) and the increasing cases of myocarditis in kids, is it safe to introduce COVID shots in children’s immunization programs when the prevalence of COVID is relatively low in children and younger population?

References

Do COVID Shots Make You Unsteady?

Written by Katelyn