Weird chronic illness versus weird COVID vaccine side effects

I have now been half vaccinated. Despite being strongly pro-vaccine, I had some real concerns about side effects for quirky personal reasons — my health is a bit poor and also weird — which makes it a helpful case study for the vaccine “hesitant.” I was hesitant myself, despite being extremely pro-vaccine, well-informed on the topic, and surrounded by a network of well-informed professionals and even hardcore experts.

If I can have concerns, anyone can!

I think it’s extremely important to be as honest as possible about legitimate issues with vaccines — it makes us a lot more credible when debunking and dismissing antivax lies and propaganda. Pretending there are no issues, ever, reads like another kind of propaganda (because it is, duh).

Being pro-vaccine is all about understanding the risks but choosing to vaccinate because the benefits greatly outweigh the risks. This post is about feeling the fear, for legitimate reasons, and doing it anyway. It’s about relating to each other. You got fears? Yeah, me too! But I did it. Because I am not too chicken to do the right thing for myself and my community.

And I certainly had some strong side effects! But nothing too awful. I am happy with my choice, and I would be happy with it even if it had been much harder. Here’s the whole story…

I got my first dose of the Moderna vaccine for COVID-19 at 3:30pm on May 16, 2021, a particularly warm spring Sunday, about 480 days after I first thought, Ruh roh—this new virus might be serious. ¹

I am staunchly pro-vaccine, but I have struggled with serious nervousness about the strangely potent side effects that many people experience.

Why so nervous?

Because I already suffer from a variety of bizarre unexplained health problems. For six years now, I have had a lot of chronic pain and malaise, with occasional savage episodes of ... something that remains undiagnosed. I truly feared the combination of vaccine side effects with “my usual bullshit.”

And I will fear it again for Dose Two.

Make no mistake: COVID vaccine side effects are a bit of a thing

While they are mostly brief and an acceptable price to pay and a signal of a healthy immune response, they are also unusually intense. I have gotten a bit annoyed with vaccine proponents minimizing/dismissing this phenomenon as a “normal” reaction. It’s not “normal”! It is acceptable, and it doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with the COVID vaccines, or that we shouldn’t take them.

But it’s not business-as-usual for vaccines. It’s actually kind of weird and intimidating. Other vaccines don’t really do this, not to such a degree. Certainly not any vaccines that most people are familiar with these days.

And strangely strong side effects are the last thing you want to voluntarily tangle with when you already have other weird health problems. ²

In any case — whether it’s addition or multiplication — more weird is really not welcome.

There was some suffering

Fortunately, five days post-jab, I seem to have mostly recovered from a strong flurry of side effects.

What I felt wasn’t at all pleasant, but it also wasn’t a big deal, or a deal-breaker. Your mileage will vary, of course. Some people really do get walloped harder, and for a few it can be quite bad and prolonged. (Although I have yet to hear of anyone who did not eventually fully recover.)

For the first 27 hours, I experienced zero side effects other than mild shoulder soreness. A surprising delay, given what came next: about twenty four hours of feeling really cruddy. It would have been a struggle to climb a flight of stairs.³

But I also had no fever, chills, nausea. It was much less awful than it could have been, much less than I have felt at the start of some actual infections. Which usually hit me hard, which seems like a clue about my health issues, which is partly why I was so worried. (It seems like maybe my immune system is a bit of a drama queen.)

Quick recovery

At the end of that first full day post-vaccine, I took 400mg of ibuprofen and 1000mg of acetaminophen (yes, it’s safe to combine those at recommended dosages), went to bed… and by morning it had all died down to a dull roar. The fatigue knocked me down for a rare morning nap, and I continued to feel “off” for a few more hours.

By midafternoon — 48 hours post-vaccine — it was clear that I wasn’t getting any worse, and by early evening it was obvious I was actually rapidly improving, which was actually rather nifty (it’s rare to recover so quickly from symptoms like that).

There were almost no symptoms left by the end of the second full day post vaccine.

Dose Two may be harder, of course — it is a bit notorious for that (especially the Moderna).

And now I can start enjoying my rapidly increasing relative safety. Keep in mind that although single-dose protection takes a long time and is never perfect, it does rapidly generate quite significant protection from vicious COVID. Which is the main thing I selfishly care about!

Updates from days 4–8: some minor ongoing side effects

Fatigue (and weird naps) was the first clear sign of continuing side effects after the initial episode of malaise on the first and second day. On day 4, despite feeling “fine,” I fell asleep on a sunny park bench. I’ve probably never done that in my entire life. In the afternoon, sure. Indoors, sure. But outdoors? In the morning? Unheard of! Methinks there might be something just a teensy bit unusual going on in my body…

In the days after that, it became obvious that I had elevated fatigue levels and a hair-trigger for headaches. At times — at the end of day, usually — the fatigue got a bit harsh, borderline malaise. This pattern is still on-going as of day nine.

A rash. On my eighth day post-vaccine, I developed a rash: a mildly itchy, blotchy red patch, raised and a bit rough, about 4cm by 2cm, immediately below the injection site. This is a known side effect, not super common, which cropped up right on schedule, about a week after injection.