Swine flu jab sparks rare condition
Monday 1st February 2010, 11:00AM GMT.
A north Shropshire woman who works for the NHS and had the swine flu vaccination has been left unable to walk properly after the jab triggered a rare medical condition.
But married mother-of-two Alison Dygnas today urged others not to be put off having the jab themselves after she developed myasthenia gravis – a neurological condition which has left her with limited mobility and unable to lead the active life she led before.
In the space of three months she has been forced to give up work, an active lifestyle and many of the things she loved doing.
She said: “It’s entirely a personal choice and I wouldn’t want people to die because they never got the jab.
“It’s a rare side effect of the jab and there’s a one in a million chance of this happening.”
Mrs Dygnas was urged to have the jab because she works in the NHS.
Health chiefs have been keen to inoculate frontline healthcare workers who are deemed to be at higher risk of catching swine flu because of the nature of their work.
“I have been very unlucky,” she said.
Mrs Dygnas says she can only walk a few hundred yards then has to “shuffle.”
“I can probably never take a hot bath again as the condition has made me very sensitive to hot and cold,” she said.
Mrs Dygnas says she also suffers with stabbing pains in her legs in the middle of the night and pins and needles all over.
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HOW rare is this reaction? Not so rare as claimed, I’ll bet.
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But I do wish Alison all the best for the future.
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This lady has my sympathies, however I have no doubt that she will be compensated by the NHS, unlike so many others who have been injured by inadequate procedures or ‘accidents’ and/or incompetence who never do because so few will take on the NHS.
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