Vaccine booster achieved!
Same place, yet another completely different set of people, and
no separate check-in this time. (But they still have a paper list on
which they look up one's name, rather than the booking number that's
supposedly vital.) This time I even had to wait until my appointment
time.
This was a Pfizer ("Comirnaty") booster on top of my original
AstraZeneca doses. And because social media algorithms are, as always,
amplifying the news that will make people feel worse, and every
negative story gets repeated eleventeen times, I report: no problems
at all. It was done at about 12.30 yesterday; the site was mildly
painful for about five seconds; this morning it feels slightly as
though I'd worked it hard with heavy lifting or something like that;
and that is the sum of all side effects so far.
I don't wish to dismiss the actual effects that people have
experienced, but even with my general policy of media-avoidance it
seems that every time someone mentions getting a booster it goes along
with a horror story. Well, not here. No pain (beyond the trivial) or
swelling at the injection site, tiredness, headache, muscle pain,
chills, joint pain, diarrhoea or fever; no injection site redness,
nausea, vomiting; and so on down the list.
- Posted by John Dallman at
10:19am on
10 December 2021
I likewise had Pfizer on top of AstraZeneca, last Saturday. No side-effects other than a slight ache at the site.
- Posted by Jon Hancock at
10:52am on
10 December 2021
Glad to hear that you didn't suffer any unpleasantness. After two doses of AZ without problems I had the Moderna booster and it floored me for two days. Still worth it, but incredible fatigue and brain-fog.
Apparently reactions are slightly more common with Moderna, but I'd rather take a chance on that than on Covid-19.
- Posted by J Michael Cule at
12:04pm on
10 December 2021
My booster site was tender for about a week afterward but I only really noticed it when I turned on my left side in the night.
I too got AZ followed by Pfizer. Perhaps that's what's ordained for this part of the world.
- Posted by RogerBW at
12:37pm on
10 December 2021
Don't look into the purchasing system. Like reading Private Eye, you'll just end up depressed.
- Posted by Owen Smith at
08:19pm on
11 December 2021
I had a Moderna booster about a month ago on top of Pfizer original doses. The booster needle hit a blood vessel, first vaccination that has bled on me for at least 20 years. Hurt like hell going in, unlike the first two doses which I barely felt. I was then off work for a week with headaches and complete exhaustion, my arm hurt for two weeks, and I still get occasional twinges at the injection side now. I put all this down to them hitting a blood vessel, the vaccine distributes around the bloodstream much faster than the normal intramuscular. It's also probably one of the causes of the heart problems, but I took things easy for two weeks (driving everywhere rather than walking to work) and I had no heart problems.
Despite all the above, totally worth it for a covid booster. I thought that even before we knew about Omicron. Roll on dose four, it's almost inevitable at this point.
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