Britney had a bright future as a sports physio… but she claims a piece of medical advice left her in agonising pain and dependent on 20 meds a day

A young woman has reclaimed her bright future as a sports physio after two Covid jabs left her with agonizing pain that forced her to take 20 medications a day.

Britney Spinks, 22, was studying for a bachelor’s degree and working at a medical center on Sydney’s northern beaches when she reluctantly received her first Pfizer vaccine at the age of 19.

“I didn’t want them,” she told Daily Mail Australia.

‘My whole family was against it, but now with university, my future career and the process of the government basically forcing us to get it, I was told ‘you have to get it or you have no future’.

‘I was backed into a corner and felt I had to do it.’

Before receiving the vaccine, Ms. Spinks led an extremely active and busy lifestyle, working three jobs at the same time and playing baseball and softball at a national level.

Hours after her first jab in September 2021, Ms Spinks began experiencing discomfort.

“It was just a weird stabbing chest pain here and there,” she said.

Despite experiencing intermittent but ‘manageable’ pain over the next month, Ms Spinks went back for her second jab.

“Within six hours of the second dose, I was convulsing from the extreme chest pain and found myself in a fetal position on the floor,” she said.

‘I felt like I was having a heart attack, stab after stab in my heart.

‘I couldn’t breathe because it would only make the pain worse, like crushing pressure. My heartbeat felt so fast.”

Mrs Spinks told a doctor ‘she couldn’t breathe’, but was again told it was a ‘normal reaction’.

“She didn’t listen to my heart, she didn’t do any tests,” she said.

“She said, ‘Go home, take two aspirin, and we’ll see how you’re doing in the morning.’

However, Mrs Spinks said the pain and worry were so bad she could not sleep that night.

The next day, Mrs Spinks’ mother Shona took her to a hospital but was not allowed in with her daughter due to Covid restrictions.

“I had to flag down a nurse because no one was looking at me,” Ms Spinks said.

“They didn’t do any tests that were relevant and should have kept me, but they didn’t.”

Over the next few weeks, Ms. Spinks said she felt a stab in her heart “every minute or every second minute of every day.”

‘It would leave me breathless. I couldn’t have a conversation. For the first month, I was bedridden,” she said.

“Because my heart rate is so high, it’s so tiring to exist.”

Mrs. Spinks also suffered from severe palpitations throughout her body during the day and at night.

‘Sometimes the palpitations were so strong that I couldn’t even sit still as my whole body was rocking with each heartbeat. “I’m in terrible pain and they haven’t given me any medicine,” she said.

‘I cried myself to sleep, but I lived in fear of not waking up. I thought I was going crazy.’

Over the next two years, Ms. Spinks would undergo seven cardiac MRIs and dozens more echocardiograms, stress tests, angiograms and electrophysiology studies along with numerous ECGs, hundreds of blood tests and several x-rays.

She consulted two cardiologists, a rheumatologist, an immunologist, a physiotherapist and a pediatrician and spent three periods in hospital, the most recent of which was a two-week stay in October.

Ms. Spinks has been diagnosed with vaccine myopericarditis, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), arrhythmia, tachycardia and tachy-brady syndrome.

These conditions cause inflammation around and on the heart, fast heartbeats, and extreme dizziness when getting up from a prone position.

To manage the range of hellish ailments, Ms Spinks took 23 medications a day, including 12 Nurofen, along with steroids, colchicine, calcium ion inhibitors and beta blockers.

“Unfortunately, there was no relief whatsoever,” she said.

Ms Spinks said the biggest hurdles to getting help for vaccine injuries are firstly getting a diagnosis and then finding someone who understands the problems caused by the new medical technology.

Under the care of her ‘fantastic’ current cardiologist, Ms Spinks and Shona insisted on and eventually received IVIG (human immunoglobulin) infusions safely.

Mrs Spinks described this treatment as a ‘watershed moment’ and was delighted to discover that all her symptoms had ‘basically disappeared’ a few days after receiving the first blood infusions.

‘I felt alive for the first time in years. It was fantastic,” she said.

Unfortunately, the improvements started to fade after a few months, but her overall condition has remained better.

After conducting her own medical research with her mother, Ms Spinks traveled to Cyprus for apheresis treatments, a type of blood filtering or cleansing to remove spike proteins produced by mRNA vaccines.

Mrs. Spinks estimates that the money she and her parents spent on the various treatments is about $250,000.

“It is very disheartening to have to seek medical treatment abroad when it should be accessible in a first world country like Australia,” she said.

‘I feel deeply let down by the medical system, which has neglected my condition for far too long.

‘If I were diagnosed and treated earlier, I don’t think I would have these lasting problems.

“The lack of structure that we have in Australia means we have zero resources for people who have been injured by vaccines, there is nothing, and I don’t know if there has been any research into any of this.”

She still has to take medication twice a day to keep her heart rate regulated, but can work one day a week as a receptionist at a radiology company.

“I can function, but I’m still not the same person I was and I don’t think I ever will be,” she said.

‘I had to make peace with that.’

Last year, Mrs Spinks even completed her physio training.

“I’m very proud of that, there were a lot of placement hours and I had to go through a lot of pain,” she said.

However, it seems unlikely that she will practice as a physio in most retirement homes and other healthcare facilities that require a fully up-to-date vaccination program for placements.

The Department of Health states on its website that Covid vaccines have been ‘thoroughly assessed by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and found to be safe and effective’.

“The TGA checks all Covid-19 vaccines for quality, safety and effectiveness before they are approved for use in Australia,” the department said.

“This is the same process that all vaccines in Australia go through. TGA medical experts continually check all vaccines to ensure they are safe.

‘Vaccines are only approved for use in Australia after they have been assessed to show that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh any risks.’