I got my third shot yesterday. The main side effect has been a sore arm. It started a few hours after the shot and continued through the night. It’s getting better now. I also feel a little tired, but that could also simply be due to not getting enough sleep last night.
Got my third shot, along with flu, yesterday. 6 mos + 1 week after my last. Woke up early, achy all over. Hot shower, Tylenol, and a nap have knocked that back. COVID arm is still tender, but flu arm doesn’t hurt anymore.
I just got my third Pfizer shot. I was getting my flu shot (at Walmart) and I asked if I was eligible for a covid booster. They said I was, so I got it.
I’m feeling fine. I had no adverse reactions from the first two shots so I’m hoping I won’t experience any this time as well.
This surprises me. I don’t think Moderna has been approved (emergency authorized) for booster shots yet and surely wasn’t back in August. Seems strange to me that a huge American company would risk whatever sort of legal action that might accompany giving out non-approved vaccines. Maybe it was just a really-big screw-up on their part?
And aside from that, I wonder why they didn’t give your MIL Pfizer instead of Moderna. And Pfizer wasn’t approved for booster shot in August either, was it? Very odd.
My reply to your post in the other thread:
Also, ISTR that they revised the storage conditions and shelf-life as well.
According to this (see PDF below), long-term storage has to be between -130 and -76F indefinitely, but that it can be stored at normal freezer temps (between -13F and 5F ) for two weeks before mixing, and put back in super-cold storage which suspends that 2 week limit.
Or… at any point in the above, it can be stored for a month in a refrigerator between 36F and 46F, and then will need to be thrown out.
Mixed vaccines can be stored for six hours at room temp, and then must be thrown out.
Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine Storage and Handling Summary-August 24, 2021 (cdc.gov)
I had Pfizer #3 on Friday morning. I got this one through CVS, which I already use for my prescriptions, but I still had to enter a bunch of info online when I made the appointment. I fall into the “50+ with underlying conditions” camp, plus I’m going to a hospital on Tuesday for an outpatient procedure and will be checking into another hospital next month for bariatic surgery. I’ll take whatever protection I can get. I think I clicked a button attesting to qualifying for a booster, but I never had to provide proof of anything. And the CVS never checked my ID, though they did look at my CDC card to ensure it had been six months before they filled in the third line.
I didn’t get a coupon. 
I deliberately scheduled #3 for a Friday in case of side effects, but all I had was a sore arm (just like after #2). It was very sore Friday night and all day yesterday, but today it’s much better. I expect any lingering soreness to be gone by tomorrow. And it wasn’t as bad as after #2, when I practically couldn’t move my arm the next day; this time it was more like a really bad bruise.
(I got my flu shot in early September at my primary care provider’s office. And ever since I turned 50 — three weeks after the flu shot — I’ve been getting notifications about the shingles vaccine: I’ll get it, but I’m not planning to be proactive about that one until after my surgery.)
I received my Pfizer booster (plus flu shot) a few weeks ago, exactly 6 months after the first two. After having zero side effects with either prior Pfizer shot, and zero side effects with years of prior flu shots, I felt pretty awful this time. For some weird reason my feet ache when I get really sick, and they ached but good the next day after these two shots. I felt pretty unwell (although not feverish) and laid on the couch with a heating pad wrapped around my feet. Within 8 hours I was back to normal.
Another odd anecdote: the shot site still hurts if I poke it. I know, I know- then don’t poke it! But weird that it’s still tender weeks later.
Otherwise I feel perfectly fine.
Third shot at just under 7 months after the second, two days ago, Monday afternoon (this is now Wednesday morning.) Only symptom on Monday was a moderately but not very sore arm. Tuesday morning I felt overall very crappy, no energy, and while not full scale nausea definitely queasy; which was a symptom I didn’t have with the first two, though my arm was more sore from the second than from the third (not so sore any time that I couldn’t use it, though.) By Tuesday/yesterday afternoon I felt pretty much back to normal.
– hmm. yeah, if I poke at the injection site it is still a little tender; but I don’t any longer notice it otherwise.
Well, because our district made the much appreciated effort to organize it, booster shots were offered yesterday right here in our building. I went and got one. It’s been about 19 hours, and I’ve had no side effects whatsoever. The injection area got sore last night, but that’s no big. That should clear up in a day or two.
Here is what the CDC says about who’s eligible based on living/working criteria:
People who work or live in high-risk settings ages 18–64 years
People ages 18–64 years at increased risk for COVID-19 exposure and transmission because of occupational or institutional setting may get a booster shot based on their individual risks and benefits. Adults who work or reside in certain settings (e.g., health care, schools, correctional facilities, homeless shelters) may be at increased risk of being exposed to COVID-19, which could be spreading where they work or reside. That risk can vary across settings and based on how much COVID-19 is spreading in a community. This recommendation may change in the future as more data become available.
Examples of workers who may get COVID-19 booster shots: [ 1 ]
- First responders (e.g., healthcare workers, firefighters, police, congregate care staff)
- Education staff (e.g., teachers, support staff, daycare workers)
- Food and agriculture workers
- Manufacturing workers
- Corrections workers
- U.S. Postal Service workers
- Public transit workers
- Grocery store workers
[1] List could be updated in the future.
I find this unhelpful. I get that if you are working from home, you’re excluded from this list. Beyond that, what is the underlying theme here? Why not just say, ‘if your job requires you to be around people from outside your household regularly (or >x people), you’re eligible for the booster?’
Yeah, that list is barely helpful. I just went ahead and got mine weeks ago, not 100% sure whether I fall under those guidelines. I volunteer one day a week at a food bank, which puts me in close proximity (including entering the apartments) of elderly low-income people for two to four hours. Somewhere back in February there was a more detailed guide put out by the CDC where food bank workers were listed, but do I really count as a worker?
I said, fuck it, who gives a shit. If there appears to be ample availability, I’m not going to have an ethical quandary about it. So I checked with Walgreens, and that day there were 25 open spots for COVID shots, booster or otherwise, and the entire week was open so I just said, the hell with it, I’m just gonna get it. I’m not keeping it from anyone else, and I’m being protective not just of myself but of the elderly people I service. If the case were like when vaccines first came out and it was impossible to find a slot, I would have deferred to a later time. But that wasn’t even close to being the case.
I don’t think the restrictions on availability for the booster (which, as you point out, are only there officially anyway, and anyone who wants one can get it) are related to vaccine scarcity, but risk management. I think the risk of things like myocarditis go up with subsequent shots, and the payoff of marginally decreased risk of covid/serious covid goes down. So it’s only worthwhile for some groups. But I think this is very much a “not enough data” situation rather than a “data proves the risk outweighs the reward” situation.
I really want to get a booster, as I had the J&J shot back in April.
I hear it’s available to people like me (under 65, no underlying conditions). I hear it on the news every night. I’m excited. I go to try and schedule a shot.
I don’t have a regular primary physician (I’m healthy, recently moved, and waiting until I turn 65 and get on Medicare to pick a new doctor). I go the CVS website. Despite all the hype, they won’t let me schedule if I’m healthy and under 65.
Next day on the news, there’s some young healthy newscaster talking about how she just got her booster from the area’s largest health and hospital system, at a facility that’s only a few miles from my house! Yay!
I go to the company’s website. I fight with it for a little while, as I am not a current patient and don’t have a MyChart account, but eventually I’m allowed to schedule as a guest. But I can’t. They ask me what vaccine I’ve had, I say J&J and it tells me I’m not eligible for a booster.
A couple of days later (yesterday), I try again. The website has been somewhat updated and it will let me schedule a J&J booster for my J&J shot. But I can’t get it to let me schedule an mRNA booster. But I really don’t want J&J, I want the cool sounding SpikeVaxx. But I’m frustrated and I figure I’ll just schedule the J&J and maybe I can change it when I get there.
Then it asks me where I want to make the appointment. It gives me two options for locations, one 47 miles away and the other 75 miles away. WTF?
This health care conglomerate has hundreds of locations in my town, one which is a vaccine center in the mall that’s less than two miles from my house. But no, they want me to drive halfway across the state to get the shot that’s not even the brand I want.
I close the page without scheduling.
I poke around a little bit more and see that the vaccine center at the mall has a couple of time slots each week for walk-ins. I don’t know why I can’t get an appointment there, maybe they are giving priority to their own customers.
So I’m going to head over there on either Tuesday morning or Thursday afternoon and hope it’s not an eternally long wait. I don’t like not being able to make an appointment though.
Good luck @Ann_Hedonia. Maybe it’s a state by state thing but I scheduled mine at a CVS in California. It asked my age (57), the date of my last dose and what brand of vaccine I had and I was let through and there were plenty of appointments.
Maybe it depends on the area; but Walgreens is taking walk-ins around here.
Oh, I finally figured it out and got an appointment at CVS on Sunday, an appointment that I wasn’t eligible for two days ago. I think it just took them some time to update their webpage to comply with the new requirements.
They should make it easier, though. I shouldn’t have to figure anything out, I should just be able to walk in to any place that delivers healthcare - I should be able to walk into the orthopedic hospital a couple of blocks from my house and get one, for example.
OTOH, maybe I can, I didn’t try.
Typo and I got ours this past Monday. We booked an appointment at the local CVS, online, and were in and out within 20 minutes (including a few minutes waiting beforehand because we arrived a bit early).
Pfizer for us; we might have been able to request Moderna but I didn’t dig too deeply into it.
Side effects: I had a sore arm. Better than after #1, no worse than #2 and possibly better. Typo Knig felt pretty crummy Tuesday afternoon and actually knocked off work early, but was fine by Wednesday.
I decided not to wait until Tuesday and walked in to CVS a few hours ago and got boosted.
My local CVS is not doing walk-ins. The app matches the CDC guidelines, though, and they are fairly heavily booked. I had choices selecting an appointment for my daughter, but there were whole days that weren’t available.