Covid Vaccination

[Owly055]

I got my covid vaccination today.........the first one.     It was probably the easiest vaccination I've ever had.  I had flu and tetanus both a few months back........ they don't bother me.  The nurse commented that she could still see the scar from the Smallpox vaccine I had 55 years ago!!   Some of my friends warned me about the dangers of getting this vaccine....... of course fed by social media BS (Facebook BS).     

I wrote this brief bit of humor about the experience...... I eliminated the place names for obvious reasons.  It's an entirely fictitious account:


I just got my first vaccination.     I'm not on Facebook, and I'd appreciate it if you would circulate this for me........ NOBODY should ever have to go through this.

    HW


Dear Facebook Friends:

    I got my first Covid shot today at the B___T___ Civic Center.......... Frankly I was terrified!    The help helicopter was idling in the parking lot of the IGA across the street waiting to medivac casualties.  When I walked in, I was unceremoniously hustled to a table where two burly men held me firmly down as a big nurse with the largest syringe I've ever seen was chuckling evilly as she filled her syringe.  The needle looked like a drinking straw.... gazing across the floor of the civic center briefly because I could not bear to watch, I saw paramedics treating a woman who was having convulsions.   Another man was getting a epinephrine shot.... his arm swollen to triple it's normal size.... another patient lay twitching feebly on the floor with someone standing over him yelling for a paramedic.     The place reeked of piss and poop from terrified people.    As I returned my gaze to the to the nurse she asked which shoulder......... I said left,  and she plunged the huge needle in....... OH MY GOD..... It was like liquid fire in my veins. Beads of sweat stood out on my forehead as I clamped my teeth shut and tried not to scream.   I'm not ashamed to say I pissed myself.    A red fog descended over my vision, and then everything went black... It must have been just moments.  The nurse was holding smelling salts under my nose and slapping my face to bring me out of it..... "can you walk?".......... "I think so"..... With help I staggered over to a chair to wait the required 15 minutes.    I was one of the lucky ones........As I left I saw men zipping someone into a body bag, and heard the roar of the help helicopter hauling the lady who had gone into convulsions to B_____   for further treatment.... as another touched down to await the next casualty.   The scene was unimaginable........... a veritable hellscape.    I dread to think that I will have to go back for yet another shot.   Could the disease possibly be any worse than the cure?


                        HW

[CapnK]

Good to know your TRUE story and experience was nothing at all like the FAKE one! :D

[Owly055]

It will soon me 24 hours, and there is absolutely no soreness......  I've had countless vaccinations over the years.    A flu or tetanus shot leaves just a bit of soreness...... I like to think I'm tough or have a high pain threshold........ but I don't think that's true.    Years ago I had an RN.... A tall drink of water named Jeanie chasing me around with a tetanus shot demanding I drop my pants..... I argued with her and and flat refused to get it in the butt......she was just being a bully, and I developed an absolute intolerance for bullies as a child.   She argued that I would not be able to use my arm for a day or two if I got it in the arm.......... utter nonsense..... I've had many tetanus shots over the years and none of them bothered me significantly.   I turned and walked out the door saying I guess I didn't need the tetanus shot after all, and she pursued me out the door and gave it to me in the left arm out in the parking lot.   I don't let women bully me, and particularly nurses, but I only see a doctor perhaps once in 10 years, and have never been in a hospital or had an operation or been seriously ill..........I don't take drugs and have no intention of taking drugs.  At 65, I should probably be getting check ups........ I never have and never will as far as I'm concerned.  Questionnaires ask "who is your primary care physician"............ what's that supposed to mean?   Doctors turn over more often than I go to the doctor..... should I list my dentist on that line?

                                                                    H.W.

[Godot]

My wife got hers last week (teacher). She got the one and done Johnson and Johnson vaccine.

She got pretty sick. Temperature just under 102. Chills. Muscle aches. The works. She started feeling better after 24 hours, and was pretty much back to normal at 48.  I'm glad she doesn't have to go back for another.

It will be awhile before my name comes up.

[Tim]

I received my second shot two days ago. I had no reaction to the first one except a soreness in the arm. Second shot a little ache the second day but hard to tell how much more than my usual old age ache, no fever. Today I feel fine.

[CharlieJ]

I go today at 1330. Can't wait to find out what it's like :-\

[Norman]

Godot, there is recent research that indicates a reaction for the first dose may mean that the patient had Covid previously.  Your wife's reaction is typical of post Covid vaccination.  Probably congratulations for strong health.  You may have shared the infection with her, and now have Covid antibodies to prove it.  If convenient, get that checked.  Who knows which of you had it first?

Asymptomatic Covid is apparently much more common than believed.  I know a family of 4 who did not realize they had all had Covid until the fourth developed stronger flu like symptoms, with a loss of taste function, and went to a Doctor.  She and her husband, plus both children tested positive for antibodies, proving they each had Covid and had recovered naturally.

Shirley and I have had our first shots, no reaction at all.  We have some friends who had reactions, and now recall that they did have "regular flu" this winter, and now suspect they had Covid with mild symptoms.

We also have a number of relatively old friends in poor health, living in elderly homes, who have taken the 2 shot sequence, and had only mild reaction to the second shot.  None had debilitating reactions.

We are looking forward to the relatively better freedom to travel and interact with friends and family the shots will provide.

[Phantom Jim]

Which vaccine are you getting, Charlie?  Barbara got the Moderna and I got the Phizer.  Neither of us had anything more than a mild ache in the arm for both injections.

We took the advice from Dr. Fauchi: if one is available, take it, no matter which one it is.

[CharlieJ]

Pfizer. No problems so far, other than a slight site soreness

[Frank]

That’s great👍👍

[Owly055]

I've held since virtually the start of this that most asymptomatic cases are the result of extremely minimal exposure.   That being exposed to just a few viral particles will allow your body's immune system to ramp up fast enough that you do not develop the full fledged disease.  To my mind this has been borne out  sufficiently and in enough ways that I was long ago convinced of it.  The most obvious evidence of this early on was the intensity of the outbreak in NYC, and the fact that it tended to hit health care workers disproportionately hard.  Also people in cultures with multigenerational living situations where many people were crowded together in a single home.  It also left most rural people virtually untouched.   I live in a rural area where a surprisingly large percentage of the population is over 80 and still works outdoors rarely going to town.  Many of these people would be classed as vulnerable, and I've worked hard to get them in for vaccinations as many of them are long time friends.  Among that group, quite a few have had light cases of covid, none have died or been hospitalized.  Part of that is probably that their immune systems are probably quite robust due to being exposed to pathogens all the time because of the outdoor agricultural lifestyle exposed to livestock, etc.  Part of it is most likely that they got a very light exposure.   I'm one of very few people in the county who ever wears a mask.... I always do when going to town, but only inside buildings because there are no outdoor concentrations of people in the places I go.   One couple in their 80's, who are close friends of mine both got it, and ended up losing taste and smell for about 10 days, and both have a slew of health issues that should have made them vulnerable.
      Back at the end of the 1700s there was a smallpox epidemic in India.  Doctors there (native "doctors") would dip a needle in a pustule of an infected person at a specific stage, and scratch a healthy person lightly.   The result was that the healthy person would get an extremely mild illness for a few days and thereafter be immune.   This was the first case of actual intentional vaccination against disease as far as I know.  It worked, and it was a live virus vaccination.   Interestingly our smallpox vaccine back in the '60's when I got one was a live virus..... I still carry a scar on my arm from it.  It was however the related cowpox rather than the actual smallpox virus.  I believe the polio vaccine was a killed virus.
      Live virus vaccination is dangerous needless to say when you use the actual pathogen as in India......... but it does save lives.   I believe many of us have been naturally vaccinated by tiny exposures to the Covid virus.   

      Interestingly recent articles have shown that the scientific community is looking seriously at this very idea.  That mask wearing confers immunity by reducing exposure to the virus.   They cannot even begin to stop a virus, but they work by absorbing the tiny droplets of moisture that carry it so that little if any actually makes it through, reducing exposure to an extent that you can develop immunity.

     Another interesting study has shown that some  SSRIs greatly reduce the severity of Covid.... So the shrinks may have inadvertently finally done somebody some good ;-)    The prescription of  SSRIs like Prosac is so common that there are detectable levels of prosac in the Thames River....... I'd be depressed too if I had to live in London and endure UK weather ;-)   Londoners take SSRIs.... the Scotts are driven to eating Haggis and other disgusting practices ;-)

[wolverine]

    I got my first Covid shot today at the B___T___ Civic Center.......... Frankly I was terrified!    The help helicopter was idling in the parking lot of the IGA across the street waiting to medivac casualties.  When I walked in, I was unceremoniously hustled to a table where two burly men held me firmly down as a big nurse with the largest syringe I've ever seen was chuckling evilly as she filled her syringe.  The needle looked like a drinking straw.... gazing across the floor of the civic center briefly because I could not bear to watch, I saw paramedics treating a woman who was having convulsions.   Another man was getting a epinephrine shot.... his arm swollen to triple it's normal size.... another patient lay twitching feebly on the floor with someone standing over him yelling for a paramedic.     The place reeked of piss and poop from terrified people.    As I returned my gaze to the to the nurse she asked which shoulder......... I said left,  and she plunged the huge needle in....... OH MY GOD..... It was like liquid fire in my veins. Beads of sweat stood out on my forehead as I clamped my teeth shut and tried not to scream.   I'm not ashamed to say I pissed myself.    A red fog descended over my vision, and then everything went black... It must have been just moments.  The nurse was holding smelling salts under my nose and slapping my face to bring me out of it..... "can you walk?".......... "I think so"..... With help I staggered over to a chair to wait the required 15 minutes.    I was one of the lucky ones........As I left I saw men zipping someone into a body bag, and heard the roar of the help helicopter hauling the lady who had gone into convulsions to B_____   for further treatment.... as another touched down to await the next casualty.   The scene was unimaginable........... a veritable hellscape.    I dread to think that I will have to go back for yet another shot.   Could the disease possibly be any worse than the cure?


                        HW

WOW!  Your experience is amazingly similar to when my best friend and his unit got married in a group ceremony!

[Owly055]

     Tough guy that I've always been, I marched in on Friday around 11 am for my second covid vaccination expecting an anticlimatic event.... which it was.   However about the middle  my shoulder had swollen up, and I had a fever and an intense headache.... the next 24 hours were miserable.  Fever and chills.  I couldn't get warm, a headache crawling around my head, first here then there that acetaminophen couldn't knock down, stiff sore muscles, no appetite, no energy.  I had to force myself to do anything at all during the day.  Saturday night the fever and chills reached a series of climaxes leaving the bed soaked with sweat.  The whole thing was like one of those 24 hour bugs (flu?) that have on a few occasions kicked my butt until they break in a flood of sweat, and like those, after the "flood", I felt fine this AM.    It generally takes a lot to get me down.   I rarely react to anything.  I'll get a flu every 10 years or so, and it rarely hits me very hard.    Of course I do not work among people, and I live alone, so my exposure when there is any, is far less than most more social people.   

       Apparently quite a few people have reacted to the second vaccination in variously similar ways.

                                                                                                   H.W.

[s/v Faith]

Wow, sorry you had this experience.  Was it Moderna? 

[Bob J (ex-misfits)]

I had the same side affect after my second shot. Woke up the next day feeling great. By 5:00 that evening felt off. Two hours later, in bed. Felt fine the next morning. It was Moderna.
Guess it's a small price to pay if it provides protection.

[Owly055]

It was Moderna...... and I agree that it is a small price to pay.

[s/v necessity]

I took my second Pfizer shot yesterday, and it's shaping up to be close to everything Owly has stated.  I haven't checked my temperature yet.  It sure wasn't a placebo.  Like I feel mostly fine, but I would flat out reject the idea of walking more than a block.  (And yea I woke up this morning feeling GREAT, and headed out of the house looking to shake off what little effects I could feel. Come evening time, I'm pushing delirious....)

[Jim_ME]

Yesterday evening, I got my vaccine booster at my local WalMart Superstore. I had read that the Moderna was only a half regular vaccine dose, but the Pfizer brand was a whole dose. Since I only had the wimpy J&J VAX, I chose Pfizer.

So the helpful and knowledgeable pharmacy associate gave me the shot, and let me go shopping without even sitting around for 15 minutes.

Everything was okay last night.

But when I got up this morning...

Now I like power boats. ???

[Frank]

🤣🤣🤣😂

[Owly055]

Yesterday evening, I got my vaccine booster at my local WalMart Superstore. I had read that the Moderna was only a half regular vaccine dose, but the Pfizer brand was a whole dose. Since I only had the wimpy J&J VAX, I chose Pfizer.

So the helpful and knowledgeable pharmacy associate gave me the shot, and let me go shopping without even sitting around for 15 minutes.

Everything was okay last night.

But when I got up this morning...

Now I like power boats. ???

You were told wrong........Actually the Moderna and Pfizer are essentially the same active ingredient, but the Moderna has many times the quantity of the active ingredient...An MRNA messenger molecule that programs cells to produce the spike protein.  The only real difference is the lipid used to carry it.  This is all documented, but I cannot give you the reference as I don't save that sort of thing.   I believe the figure was somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 times as much.