In anticipation of discomfort during the course of the day, some people take painkillers such as ibuprofen or paracetamol before going to their COVID-19 vaccination appointments. But it has caused concern that the immune system is accidentally suppressed and the protection of the vaccine is lost.
The recent version may focus on a study on the subject published on January 19, although the study only looked at immune responses in mice and human cells growing in petri dishes. As more and more people get their second doses of COVID-19 vaccine, you may also hear of mild side effects such as nausea, fatigue and low-grade fever. These symptoms are more common after the second admission than the first, and according to doctors, this discomfort usually disappears within a day or two.
To date, people rarely experience severe allergic reactions to the COVID-19 vaccines. In a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ten cases of anaphylactic shock associated with the Moderna vaccine were found from more than 4 million doses administered in December and January. In an earlier study, 21 cases were found among the first 1.8 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The majority of these side effects occur shortly after people are vaccinated, so the standard protocol is to observe them all for 15 minutes.
Gothamist the dr. Adam Berman, a toxicologist and chair of emergency medicine at Long Island Jewish Hospital in North Island Health, asked to explain why self-medication before a shot is not a good idea for most people, but probably not terrible either. His answers were edited for brevity and clarity.
Some research suggests that common anti-inflammatory drugs may inhibit the body’s immune response. Not much, but maybe by a little. Is this something you’re up to?
This is something I have heard a lot about – from my colleagues, my patients and even my own family. I thought of it myself when I took the COVID-19 vaccine.
But I do not think there is good evidence in humans that they inhibit your immune response. There is only one study on this.
If there is good evidence that the use of anti-inflammatory drugs is detrimental to your immune response, we will have problems with all kinds of vaccines that take you your whole life without being effective. It applies to the use of anti-inflammatory drugs before or after these shots. More research is needed, but I’m not worried about that right now.
Even if there is no evidence, there is the precautionary principle – the idea that we should play it safe. Is it not an argument against the use of this medicine before we know more about the possible impact on the immune system?
The truth is that if you feel that you can handle the symptoms and you do not absolutely have to take medication, it is always best not to take a medication. If people are concerned about the weakening of the vaccine response and do not want to take a painkiller out of abundance of caution, then that is definitely okay. But there is probably not enough evidence to take the medicine if they have a sore arm in the graft.
So keep the drugs ready, wait to see if there are any bad symptoms, and then decide if you want to use Advil or Tylenol. But should not you take it in advance?
Exactly. If people now know they have a history of vaccine reactions, that’s a different story. If someone says that they usually swell after taking a shot and are so worried that this is the difference between the vaccination, then I would feel comfortable taking a painkiller before they get the vaccine. If they then have so much worry, they want to talk to their doctor anyway before going to get a vaccine.
Okay, so ‘wait and see’ and ‘less is more.’ What should guide people’s decisions about taking this medicine?
We are talking about the same symptoms you would feel if you had a kind of mild viral illness like a cold. And if people feel very uncomfortable after receiving the vaccine, they should use medicine rather than practice it.
We hear that this body has an immune response due to your side effects. The public health people say, “It’s just your body that does what it has to do.” Is this true? Rather than the reaction of a sharp metal object, a syringe, which penetrates muscle tissue?
The arm pain is more related to irritation due to the amount of fluid injected into the muscle. It’s painful. The symptoms of the body that people experience a few hours after the vaccination probably come from the actual immune response on the lap.
And these are the kind of symptoms that respond well to anti-inflammatory drugs?
In general, yes. It can make you feel much better. After my second dose of vaccine, I had a headache for a few days. At first I did not think anything of it. It was not a nasty headache. But after a few days, I said to myself, ‘Maybe it’s from the vaccine,’ so I take some Aleve. After a few days it disappeared.
Of course, at that point it would have disappeared by itself. Or maybe you had a little placebo effect?
It can be. I’m all for the placebo effect!