[dirk digler]

Doesn't seem to too bad. I never get any side effects when I get my flu shot so hopefully I won't for this either.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/02/healt...cts/index.html

What it feels like to get an mRNA coronavirus vaccine

As the United States inches closer to authorizing a Covid-19 vaccine many people may now let themselves start wondering what it will feel like to get it.

Is it going to be like the flu vaccine? Will it be more painful? And what about side-effects?

The two front-runners for getting an emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration -- Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna -- use new mRNA technology. No US-licensed vaccine has ever used it, although researchers have been studying it for decades, against infections like flu, rabies and Zika, and even for some types of cancer.

The way these mRNA vaccines work is that they give our body the instructions, in the form of messenger RNA, for making a little piece of this particular coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) -- specifically the spike protein. When our body gets these instructions, it starts producing the spike protein. That in turn triggers our immune system, which recognizes the spike protein as "foreign," to make antibodies against it. So when we get infected with the real virus, our body is already prepared to fight it.

These vaccines require two doses: one to prime the body, and then a few weeks later, a second shot to boost the response. Study results show that Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna's vaccines are each in the neighborhood of 95% effective.

But because the technology is so new for a vaccine, it has raised many questions and some concerns among those for whom it's intended.

One participant in the Moderna trial said getting vaccinated was "definitely not a walk in the park" but he would certainly do it over again.

Yasir Batalvi, a 24-year-old recent college graduate living in the Boston area, said he originally signed up to join a trial on the NIH website back in early July because he felt moved to do something to help during the pandemic.

So what did it feel like?

"The actual injection felt, at first, just like a flu shot, which is basically just a little pinch in the side of your arm," Batalvi said. "Once I left the hospital, that evening, the stiffness got a little bit worse. It was definitely manageable, but you kind of don't really feel like moving your arm too far above your shoulder. But the side effects are pretty localized. I mean, it's just in the muscle in your arm. And that's about it. It doesn't really affect anything else and you feel fine."

That was after the first dose. But the second dose was different.

"I actually had some pretty significant symptoms after I got the second dose. Once I got the second dose, I was fine while I was in the hospital. But that evening was rough. I mean, I developed a low-grade fever, and fatigue and chills," Batalvi said. He said he was out for that day and evening, but he "felt ready to go by the next morning."

He said he called the study doctors to let them know about his symptoms. They weren't alarmed and told him he shouldn't be either.

Feeling under the weather does not mean that you got Covid-19 from the vaccine -- in fact, experts say having this kind of reaction shows that your body is responding the way it should, and it should not deter anyone from getting vaccinated or going back for their second dose.

"That means your immune response is working for you. You should feel good about that," said vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offit of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "And [there] shouldn't really be any difficulty coming back for that second shot, knowing that you're now in a much better position to fight off this awful virus, which has killed more than 250,000 people and can cause a lot of long term effects."