Trying to talk about ongoing, persistent headache that *isn’t* VITT but started after the AstraZeneca vaccine is hard. Either you get your words used by anti-vaxxers, or you get assumed to *be* an anti-vaxxer.

It does seem to be shifting, slightly, slowly, though.

The headache, that is. Yesterday I would definitely have called it ‘mild’. This morning it is marginally *less* mild, but I did have a bad night’s sleep and that could easily be linked, as nothing’s ever made *better* by poor sleep.

Other countries don’t seem as quick to pounce on anything even mildly less-than-glowing about one specific vaccine and pronounce the speaker anti-vax.

Perhaps that is because we have the long shadow of Andrew Wakefield hanging over us here.

I do actually feel a bit sorry for Richard Horton sometimes - not much, like; such harms done by publishing Wakefield’s paper - but I bet it is hard to live with the guilt over it.

But I do think all of that contributes to this sentiment here in the UK that if you even *question* a vaccine - one specific vaccine, mind you, not vaccines in general - you do risk being derided for it.

It makes it *very* hard to talk about side-effects.

There’s this thought too that if you even moan a bit about the side effects you should keep it to yourself lest you put others off. Saw this in an exchange yesterday on here, in fact.

It makes it hard to seek help.

Now, here’s the thing. I do not want to put anyone off getting a vaccine. I also have some questions about AstraZeneca and a *possible* ongoing side effect. I’d like answers. I’d like those answers before my second shot is due in June.

I want to reconcile those two things.

I’m a tiny account with just over 60 followers so luckily I can’t imagine many people who follow me deciding against vaccination on the basis of what I say, so that’s something.

But sometimes you get retweeted by people who have the agenda of being against vaccination against this virus. Any form of vaccine, as it happens. They really do believe it is always better to be infected than to be vaccinated. Some even state that they want their kids infected.

(I think a lot of these people have seen the government’s constantly changing opinions (especially that they wanted herd immunity via infection initially) and like Skinner’s pigeons detected a pattern that isn’t there. But that’s just my opinion.)

So, later today, when I’ve had my breakfast and come back from going to the park with the kids, I’m going to write a little thread about these headaches. But anyone who assumes I’m anti-vaccine, pls read this thread first. And if you are anti-vaccines, all of them, pls go away.