Age appears to be a factor, and reports from people in my life who have been vaccinated seem to agree.
My mother and MIL, on opposite sides of 70, reported no side effects at all. Friends and relatives my age (40s) who have gotten vaccinated had some minor side effects, like a sore arm or just felt bad for a day or so. Friends and relatives that are younger who have been vaccinated all reported feeling bad for about a week afterwards. Granted I don’t know which vaccine they got
I read somewhere (maybe it was here) that the stronger your immune system is, the stronger your side effects ('cause your immune system is fighting back). So we old farts are likely to have fewer side effects. Don’t know, because my second vaccine, which I was going to get tomorrow, has been canceled due to inclement weather. I’ll report back when it happens.
I am so sorry that your shot has been delayed. We had a heavy snow a while back that caused appointments to be rescheduled and all I could think about was all of those heart broken and disappointed people.
If it had happened to me, part of my brain would have been all “yeah, getting my shot won’t do much good if I die in a weather caused accident”, but the other part would have been throwing itself on the floor and screaming while kicking hands and feet.
Well, I figure it’s in the hands of the gods dogs, and I trust them.
Og says: Don’t crash or freeze on the way to or from the vaccination site.
Good plan. I had pretty terrible GI side effects from a past flu shot, so whenever the heck it is in that I’m finally able to get the vaccine, I plan to make use of some of my 200+ hours of amassed sick time the day after each shot.
Thanks for this, I was not aware of the issue. But just to note that acetaminophen is not an NSAID.
Shingrix was quite fucking awful for me. Both shots had me wretched for 3 days.
Pfizer COVID #2 caused a little imbalance, the whisper of a headache, tiredness, temp of 99.something off and on, and some soreness at the injection site (in my case, the upper thigh) for a day or two. It was nothing. Same for my wife. Maybe a little coughing and sniffling, but juniper pollen is up, so who can tell the difference?
Off topic: Is gin a remedy for that, I wonder… You know, from a homeopathic perspective. Some research might be in order.
Science!
Is anyone tracking the incidence of severe side effects? I heard in a meeting earlier today the suggestion that those getting the Moderna vaccine were having more severe side effects than those who got the Pfizer vaccine. Obviously, that sounds anecdotal.
Slightly fluish, body aches. Arm a little sore. Moderna, 2nd
By anyone do you mean a regulatory body or a member of the boards? Plus, what do you mean by severe?
The European Medicines Agency are - I think these are the latest (but I don’t know of anything comparative - I can look tomorrow, it’s late here.)
j
I received Pfizer dose #2 just about 30 hours ago. I have slight soreness at the injection site and no other symptoms. The injection site soreness is very minor and much less than the pain from the flu shot.
We both had some flu like symptoms on day two- chills, body aches, etc. Arm sore at site.
No biggie, just dont plan anything critical for day two of shot 2.
Moderna.
Yeah, pretty bad flu like symptoms, worse than the Covid shots. But for me only a full looooong day.
Pfizer was the vaccine I received. The first shot went easy, with a slightly sore arm for the first 2 days, then nothing.
However, the second shot was very different. I had minimal arm soreness for the first day, and then began to develop a red rash and swelling at the injection site. Over the next four days, the rash peaked on the 3rd day, and then began to subside along with the swelling. But the big surprise was on the evening of the forth day post injection, I began to develop joint and muscle pain, stomach pain and nausea, and a fever with chills. Over the next 24 hours my temp climbed to 100.9F, but is now down to 99.2F. No energy, and find walking slowly both painful and tiring. But I no longer have nausea or stomach pain. I am forecasting a full recovery in the next day or so (hopefully).
I would say that I was about as ill as if I had a good dose of flu. Note that there has been no respiratory involvement, and my taste and smell are intact. This leads me to believe that I have been experiencing an abnormally strong immune response to the second shot. Any thoughts?
Interesting.
I think maybe I might have felt more aches and muscle pain and stomach upset than usual on the fourth day after my second Pfizer shot… but then I often have muscle aches (due to being an old, pretty inactive lazy slug), so I thought I might have been imagining that it was connected to the shot. I dunno. Fine now. Well, as fine as I normally am.
Has anyone found any studies that show if there is a correlation of severity between reactions on the first shot and the second shot? After my Moderna first shot, I had a sore arm for three days (enough that I couldn’t sleep on that side), and a few hours of bad shivering. My thermometer says I only hit 99.5, but I’m usually 97.2 on that thermometer. As far as I can tell, this is a bit worse than ‘average’ for the first shot, and I wonder if that’s likely to be indicative of my reaction to the second shot. I get my second shot in about a week and a half, and am preparing myself for several days in bed if necessary.
From my account of my second shot experience, you can see that my reactions were stronger than most. But I am delighted that the reactions are all gone; they only lasted about 36 hours!
Weird experience. But hopefully it will calm others who have second shot unwanted side effects.
I got 2 Pfizers. Worst part was a sore arm the next day - as if someone had punched me. I also had a very slight headache and a slight bit of dizziness for a very short period after the second dose. It’s been a week and that been it.