Long COVID and Vaccine Side-Effects: A Conversation With Dr. Jonathan Bayuk
Article published in Northampton Living
(August 2022)
EXPERT CONTRIBUTOR
Allergy & Immunology
Allergy & Immunology Associates of New England (AIANE)
+1 413 586 0769
www.allergyimmunologydocs.com
Interview led by Charles Noyes
For those who don’t know, Dr. Jonathan Bayuk is a board-certified allergist and immunologist as well as the president of the Allergy & Immunology Associates of New England. He is one of the area’s foremost experts on allergy and immunology on top of being a well-respected and beloved community member and educator.
I recently sat down with Dr. Bayuk to discuss two topics that are present in a lot of people’s minds as the weight of the COVID-19 pandemic shifts to the long-term ramifications: Long-COVID and vaccine side effects.
Charles: I would love to start by addressing the elephant in the room and hearing your reflections on the pandemic as a whole. Not to say that it’s over by any stretch and that will be the focal point of the rest of my questions, but many people are starting to put it in the rearview.
Dr. Bayuk: Thanks for the question. We all want to put this behind us, but people don’t yet understand how much damage was done to the healthcare system in the past two years in the sense that doctors and nurses are fed up with patients. The virus doesn’t care whether you believe in it or not and we were the ones who had to bear the brunt of that. I’m a patient guy, but at the end of the day I just don’t have the time to argue with everyone I see. Would you go to your mechanic and say “my engine’s fine” if he told you there was a problem? And what would the mechanic say in response, “drive away then and see what happens.”
Charles: No, I wouldn’t. Apart from issues with just getting people to treat themselves, there’ve been numerous issues with getting people to vaccinate against it. A huge reason for that has been fear, both rational and irrational, about possible side effects from the vaccine. But isn’t it true that every vaccine has side effects of some kind?
Dr. Bayuk: That’s correct. Some people have side effects, but that is not worrisome or unusual for people who get vaccines. With every vaccine, there will be some number of people who experience side effects. I’ve been a vaccine immunologist for a long time and long before COVID there were people who had reactions to vaccines. The difference here is that many people have been vaccinated very quickly so there are inherently going to be more reports of reactions. COVID vaccines are about to be approved for kids under 5 down Long COVID and Vaccine Side-Effects: A Conversation With Dr. Jonathan Bayuk to 6 months and I’m sure a lot of parents will be fearing for their children’s safety, but I’m here to say that it is as safe as any vaccine out there.
Charles: Right you are and that’s important to note. But I’m curious, are there any legitimate concerns with these vaccine side effects?
Dr. Bayuk: Absolutely. But there’s a phrase in the medical community, “There are only two types of medical intervention, those that don’t work and those with side effects.” Really, the vaccines were not presented correctly. The side effects should have been talked about more from the beginning in order to inform people.
Charles: And what do those side effects typically look like?
Dr. Bayuk: Most commonly, there are flu-like symptoms: fever, nausea, chills. Next are cardiogenic reactions, or things to do with the heart: increased heart rate and blood pressure. All of these incidents have generally turned out to not be dangerous. Then there are people who’ve had neurological problems, like numbness, tingling, which scared them because they thought it was an allergic reaction, but it wasn’t. Most of these resolved, but then in rare cases there were people who had more serious issues in these same areas. The J&J vaccine had the blood clot issue. Some people have developed pericarditis of the outside lining of the heart. Those people did respond to treatment and got better. I have rarely seen people who’ve had true allergic reactions to the vaccines with anaphylaxis, but I have seen it.
Charles: Got it, and what about the other end of the spectrum, those dealing with Long-COVID? What is that experience like and how have we come to better understand the condition?
Dr. Bayuk: The symptoms of Long-COVID include everything we talked about with the vaccine except worse and persistent. Brain fog, breathing issues, neurologic issues, extreme fatigue to the point of not being able to work, etc. There’s a fear about how insidiousness and persistent it is, but I want to reassure people that it is treatable and there is an end in sight for those who have it. Conditions will likely improve with the right treatment plan, but it’s not fun. It’s all caused by cytokines, which are immunologic signals that carry out our immune responses, and once they start firing to fight the initial COVID infection, they sometimes don’t turn off even after the initial infection is gone. There are at least 5 main types of cytokines responsible for long covid. Steroids can help because they shut down most of them, but there are also more specific blockers for each individual one. Sometimes these treatments have side effects too. There are many ways you can help with that reaction, but it requires an expert who can deal with it.
Charles: Thank you so much for the conversation, Dr. Bayuk. If there is one thing that you want everyone who reads this to take away, what would that be?
Dr. Bayuk: Having spent time with both of these sides and seeing thousands of people facing these issues, if I had a choice between having COVID and facing COVID-related symptoms or getting the vaccine and facing some of these vaccine-related symptoms 100% of the time I would choose the vaccine because in my experience they are the ones who get better and they respond better to treatment.
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