Does Shingles Vaccine have T1D Side Effect?

Hello, 

You’ve asked for my story about T1D, so I decided to share it briefly with you all.

I’ve been a military and civilian pilot for over 50 years.  Each of those years, I’ve taken an FAA physical exam with normal results.  My last exam was in November 2014, and my BG was 85. 

In January 2015, my wife and I decided to have the Shingles vaccine that was hyped on television at that time.  

At that time, I was traveling every week doing contract work in the aerospace industry.  In May 2015, I was working with a company in Minneapolis, when I started having symptoms that I found out later were the result of DKA.

When my wife picked me up at the airport at the end of the week, she told me I looked terrible.  The next day I checked my BG and found it very high, so I went to the local ER.

I spent several days in the hospital recovering from DKA, then I had a home health nurse for about three weeks.

It was that nurse that first mentioned the Shingles vaccine that I had taken five months before, and told me that she had heard of other stories about the vaccine interfering with beta cells.

Initially, I was diagnosed erroneously with T2D and was put on Metformin and insulin pens for a few months, until I could no longer control the BG.  Then I changed my endocrinologist, who did a full study and diagnosed T1D.  I have been on a Medtronic insulin pump since then and look forward to changing to the Tandem IQ pump in a few months. 

I have not found any scientific research specifically related to the original shingles vaccine and T1D so I can not prove that the Shingles vaccine was the cause of my developing T1D.  In addition, the vaccine itself has been changed since 2015.  

However, my technical background leads me to question why I went for almost 50 years with normal glucose, checked annually in a rigorous exam, and then suffered DKA five months after taking the vaccine. 

When I visit physicians for routine checkups and procedures, they question how I could have developed T1D after so many years.  I tell them my story, but they don’t seem to believe me when I accuse the Shingles vaccine.  It appears that Big Pharma has a tremendous influence over the medical profession, so much so that a contrary indication like mine is ignored or not believed.

Thanks & Best Regards,
John, an Astronautical Engineer living in Texas