Toe dr. Maureen Ford getting her first dose of Pfizer vaccine for COVID-19, the only side effect was a mild sore arm.
The second dose hit her harder. Ford is a physician for Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo and got his second chance after completing a Friday shift. “She woke up the next morning with a few teeth chattering shivers and muscle aches,” she said, and was so tired that afternoon that she took a two-hour nap.
“I just had to take a few doses of ibuprofen,” Ford said. “I said it all, I was 100% within 36 hours.”
Although it was uncomfortable to feel unwell for part of her weekend, Ford said she was “happy” to experience the side effects.
“I knew it was just my body making those antibodies” against COVID-19, she said. “It took up energy and caused a bit of an immune response.”
Ford’s experience is pretty typical.
“When we started our second dose of clinics, we noticed an increase in the registration of side effects,” said Dr. Christine Nefcy, chief medical officer of Munson Healthcare in Traverse City, said.
“They’re mostly kind of what we expected – they usually don’t feel good one day, swollen lymph nodes in the armpit,” she said. “These are all signs of your immune system kicking in and doing what he needs to do.”
In this respect, the side effects are a positive sign, Nefcy said, leading to a good news-bad news situation for senior citizens. “They tend not to have this robust immune response,” she said. This means fewer side effects of the vaccine, but can also mean that fewer antibodies are produced.
Todd Belding, pharmacy manager at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, said he heard the same things from his colleagues who received their second dose of vaccine.
“We definitely hear that people respond more to the second dose than the first dose,” he said. ‘I hear people can feel tired from one to three, four days after that, and maybe up to a week sore in the arm. But these are good things; it shows an immune response. ‘
He added that many people try to plan their shots for the next day, but if that is not possible, ‘they find that they can take Motrin or Tylenol and work through it’.
The most common side effects of the Pfizer vaccine were fatigue, headache and muscle aches. Smaller numbers reported chills, joint pain or fever, according to the federal information document from the Food and Drug Administration.
According to the FDA information document, the Moderna vaccine has similar side effects: injection site pain, fatigue, headache, muscle aches, joint pain and chills. Swollen lymph nodes were also reported.
Dr Frank Rosenblat, an infectious disease specialist at McLaren Health in Pontiac, noted that not everyone experiences side effects.
“I had no side effects” with one of the two doses, he said, and from his colleagues, “I heard all kinds of stories about both vaccines. I heard the second was terrible or the first was terrible or both was good, and that’s with the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine. There’s really no rhyme or reason I can choose “in terms of how someone would react to the shots.
“But one had what you would call a serious side effect,” he added. “You may lie in bed all day, but nothing that is life-threatening or that we would call a serious adverse drug reaction.”
And much better at experiencing mild side effects than having coronavirus yourself, Ford said.
“We know that COVID can be anything from asymptomatic to respiratory failure and death,” she said. ‘What concerns me is those long-term health issues – those non-specific, persistent problems of tachycardia, shortness of breath and things we do not really understand. Nobody wants that.
“So I got the shots knowing that there were some symptoms, but also that it would be protection for myself and my community,” Ford said. “It’s just part of moving the pandemic response forward.”
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