The Pfizer Vaccine and Me

[Nick Name]

I put it off for a long time but finally decided to get the COVID vaccine. I would have preferred the J&J but that wasn't available locally, my choices were Moderna or Pfizer. I decided on Pfizer, based on extensive (roughly 2 minutes of Google ) research and the pharmacy I chose. Due to my unusual work schedule and some other factors I went to Walgreens.

I didn't have any problems with the first shot, but I did have a reaction to the 2nd. Basically, I felt like I had a bad 24 hour flu, with the worst symptoms kicking in 18-24 hours later. I had nausea, joint aches, fatigue, and surprisingly a lot of sinus drainage. I never felt like I had a fever but I did have the chills and hot flashes too. All these were listed as possible effects of the shot so I'm confident I didn't actually have the flu or something else. I had the 2nd shot exactly 3 weeks after the first one, and if I were to do it over I would wait at least a couple more weeks to get the 2nd one. My advice to anyone who's going to get Pfizered or still needs the 2nd shot is to wait a bit longer than 3 weeks. Also, don't plan on going to work or doing any physical activity within 24 hours of the 2nd or you're going to have a bad time.

BTW, my father got vaccinated at Rite Aide and I was not happy with their service. I was satisfied with Walgreens but all of these pharmacies need to hire more help. I guess that's true for a lot of businesses these days. My experience with both was that scheduling an appointment online means nothing, in terms of how fast - or not - you are taken care of.

 

[Vester]

I had my second Pfizer shot on 6 January, 2021 exactly two weeks after the first shot. I had no reaction at all, but that is because my immune system (age 78) was NOT as good as yours. Your reaction to the second shot meant that you had a level of immunity that I did not have. I had an antibody test in July, and I have a good level of COVID-19 antibodies.

I go with the statistics. A much smaller percentage of people die of COVID-19 if they have been vaccinated.

 

[supdood]

I had a similar reaction to the second dose but am glad to have produces those antibodies. I'm also glad that more folks are getting vaccinated now--I hate that this has become a political/cultural issue when the science, as Vester points out, is absolutely clear: getting vaccinated saves lives.

 

[Nick Name]

The stats seem to be pretty clear that vaccines protect the population. The problem is if you happen to suffer the worst effects of the vaccine, heart problems or blood clots etc., those risks are borne individually. The fact that those risks are small, statistically speaking, is small comfort if you're an outlier. I'm not in favor of mandated vaccination partly for this reason.

I just reached a point where I felt the risks of not being vaccinated outweighed the other. I think it's a little bizarre that it seems to be more of a political decision than a health decision for a lot of people.

 

[Scott]

I had no reaction to the second dose, but my buddy did. It just seems to effect people differently, much like the virus itself.

 

[Nick Name]

We've had at least 2 vaccinated folks at work get sick in the last month. I don't know which vaccine they had. I also have a friend who has family working at the local hospital who told me at one time most of the COVID patients had been vaccinated. It makes me question the value of vaccination for healthy folks without any underlying conditions.

 

[Scott]

I think it has been well established that the "vaccine" is not a vaccine, but a therapeutic. Much like the flu shot. It will not prevent the illness but seems to lessen the chance of serious illness. My 72 yo Mom took the shot and ended up getting covid. She was sick for 4-5 days but not that bad. I have known others in her age group that got covid with no vaccine and they were down for much longer with worse symptoms. Yes this is purely antidotal, but it does seem to be a trend. It will be years before all of the data is collected and we really know the truth. I think it has already been shown that lockdowns and some of the more extreme measures and mandates used in some areas were way overboard, and did more harm than good.

 

[supdood]

As usual, I've been lurking on the boards keeping up with Team USA happenings, but I have to jump in on this one. Especially as this is a team dedicated to advancing science.

First, there seems to be a lot of confusion about what a vaccine is. Vaccines can be either given ahead of time to lessen symptoms from infection (prophylactic) or to reduce symptoms once infected (therapeutic). There is also a smaller subset of the prophylactic vaccines that help you avoid infection all together (I don't remember the medical term for these). The politicizing of everything Covid has led to a distortion of the facts: the Covid vaccines were always known to be prophylactic; you may still get infected by Sars-CoV-2, but your increased static antibody levels from the vaccine reaction will provide a high level of protection against serious illness. This protection is useful in two ways: first, no matter your age or conditions, it will help you fight off the virus and avoid series illness; two, by keeping your own viral load down, you decrease the likelihood of spreading it to others (lower viral load means you have to have longer contact with others to spread it). At no point did the manufacturers, CDC, etc. claim that the vaccine made you immune to Sars-CoV-2 infection.

This leads to point two: many of the positive cases in hospitals are coincidental. Hospitals had been (maybe they still are) testing everyone who came in for any type of procedure or injury. That 100% testing rate combined with the extreme high transmissibility of the Omicron variant and vaccine protection resulting in minor or no symptoms meant that a lot of patients who were in the hospital for completely unrelated reasons, found themselves with a positive Covid test. This led to very high numbers of people in hospital with Covid, even if they weren't receiving any Covid treatment (that is, they didn't need to go to the hospital because of Covid).

I'm hopeful that this spring and summer we can transition into treating this as endemic, the same way we do the seasonal flu. Getting a Covid booster along with a flu shot once a year doesn't seem too bad.

 

[Vester]

Thank you, supdood.

I got my first Pfizer shot on 6 February 2021 and the second two weeks later. I got the booster on 30 September. After my fully vaccinated wife tested positive for COVID-19 in January, I was tested also. My result was positive, but my only symptom was a head cold. I had no fever. My wife's symptoms were a chest cold and loss of taste and smell for two days. She had no fever.

I am 79 years old, and my wife is seventy-seven.

 

[Nick Name]

My opinion, and take it for it's worth - is that people expected 100% or nearly so protection. Other diseases like measles, whooping cough, polio etc. have been essentially eliminated in the developed world thanks to vaccines. I've never heard anyone say you may still get measles even if you're vaccinated, and I've never heard of such a case even though it may be possible. I can tell you from discussions I've had with people, they expected the vaccine to keep them from getting sick. That's where the bar is thanks to amazing medical progress over the last century. People are less inclined to get a shot that promises partial, unquantifiable protection. You can quantify it statistically over a population, but that's not very convincing to the average person on an individual level. Telling me the shot may not prevent me getting sick but will reduce symptoms is a much tougher sell, especially when vaccinated folks I know have told me they were the sickest they've ever been. It's impossible to say with certainty how "less sick" they were than if they weren't vaccinated. This is why I don't get the flu shot. I can still get the flu, but I know what the flu looks like and how to treat it, plus the efficacy most years is little better than a coin flip. The difference with COVID is that if you happen to be more susceptible for whatever reason the affects tend to be more dangerous than the flu. All this is anecdotal of course and certainly not a guide for sound medical policy. It will however color my own personal medical decisions.

Regarding the local hospital anecdote, my understanding is these were patients admitted with COVID distress, not the overall patient load. It wouldn't be a surprise to have a greater infection rate in unvaccinated patients, but the opposite would be surprising.

All that aside, I've found the politization of this very odd and also deeply disturbing. I don't know why this is but it's part of the growing political divide that's been happening over the last several decades. It doesn't bode well for future crises.

 

[Nick Name]

Thank you, supdood.

I got my first Pfizer shot on 6 February 2021 and the second two weeks later. I got the booster on 30 September. After my fully vaccinated wife tested positive for COVID-19 in January, I was tested also. My result was positive, but my only symptom was a head cold. I had no fever. My wife's symptoms were a chest cold and loss of taste and smell for two days. She had no fever.

I am 79 years old, and my wife is seventy-seven.

Just out of curiosity, I also got the Pfizer and had to wait 3 weeks between. Actually, when I got the first one someone had come in for their second one and the pharmacy wouldn't give it to them because the full 3 weeks hadn't elapsed yet. I'm not 79, yet. Is the shorter window between due to age difference or was there a change in the recommended time between?

 

[Vester]

I apologize for the bad information. It was three weeks between the first two shots and the first one was 16 January.

Dose 1 administered on Jan 16, 2021
Name:
Pfizer SARS-CoV-2 Purple Cap Vaccine
Manufacturer:
Pfizer, Inc
Lot #:
EL0142
Location:
AnMed Health
Dose 2 administered on Feb 6, 2021
Name:
Pfizer SARS-CoV-2 Purple Cap Vaccine
Manufacturer:
Pfizer, Inc
Lot #:
EM9810
Location:
AnMed Health
Dose 3 administered on Sep 30, 2021
Name:
Pfizer SARS-CoV-2 Purple Cap Vaccine
Manufacturer:
Pfizer, Inc
Lot #:
FF2588
Location:
AnMed Health

 

[supdood]

This thread is a example of what makes this a great team. While we are familiar with each other on these boards, we don't actually know each other at all. Yet, there is an underlying respect that leads to a civil conversation on topics that have become polarizing.

Nick Name, you have a lot of valid points and you are correct--at the end of the day it has to be an individual decision what medicine to put (or not put) into your body. I hope my post didn't come off as attempting to invalidate your position. While my location says Massachusetts, I don't live in the progressive part and have a much higher ratio of traditional conservatives as well as the new variety (think Trump Trucks) than you might expect from seeing national election results. I've seen the inexplicable scenarios where those who don't want to mask or vaccinate become abusive of those who do, and I hoped that an airing of the facts as I see them would keep this thread from going anywhere near that. I should have known that our team is above that kind of behavior.

On the wider topic of politicization and polarization, from my perspective, political demagogues have taken advantage of our sense of individualism (often expressed as freedom) and have worked to make expression of the same what is considered patriotic while any limits on it are unamerican. This goes completely against our history of coming together in crises and putting our individualism aside for the greater good of the country (think of the sacrifices made on the home front in WWII). I see this narrative used by political actors in areas where the collective is requiring action of the individual for the benefit of the collective. I can think of four good examples off the top of my head. In all cases, the causal relationship between action and outcome is scientifically robust with little disagreement in the scientific community. Two of the examples require individual action for the betterment of all, two require action only from affected individuals. Climate change mitigation, diet-induced health issues (such as heart disease or diabetes), cancer, and Covid mandates. Clearly two of these are contentious and two aren't. But I would wager that if we said that we should improve the diets of everyone so that it became part of our culture to eat healthy, from-the-earth foods or if we said that we need to clean up all environmental causes of cancer and stop our use of many types of chemicals, we would start to get the same messages from those demagogues about repressing our freedom.

I don't mean this to be a rant, rather a lament that political actors have been slowly (until recently when it turned quick and aggressive) manipulating us to the point where we have lost our sense of identify as Americans first. I hope that we can remember that it is love of country and not your political views that make you patriotic before the next crisis breaks us.

 

[Nick Name]

Nick Name, you have a lot of valid points and you are correct--at the end of the day it has to be an individual decision what medicine to put (or not put) into your body. I hope my post didn't come off as attempting to invalidate your position.

Certainly not, and I appreciate your thoughtful replies and input. To be clear, I think that the personal responsibility goes hand-in-hand with personal freedom, and that part is too often overlooked. Deciding where the line is can get tricky.

I'm expecting some form of junk food tax to be implemented in the future. It's pretty well established that a lot of these junk food products, especially sodas, are not only toxic they're addictive. Kind of sounds like tobacco doesn't it.