First dose of vaccine

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Dave
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First dose of vaccine

Post by Dave »

Gwen and I got our first doses of the Moderna vaccine this morning, courtesy of our county medical system (our primary health provider hasn't had enough vaccine available yet to schedule us). It took me about four hours on hold to make the appointments last week, the day after the county opened up registration to us 65-and-above types. The online sign-up system was completely borked... its spam-and-bot-defense captcha was misconfigured and wouldn't let anybody schedule an appointment.

It took about 45 minutes from arrival to departure... roughly equal parts paperwork, waiting for a medical technician to be free to administer the shots, and the post-injection wait to see if we'd have a bad reaction.

So far, so I have is a slightly sore arm. Gwen felt achy and tired this afternoon... might or might not be from the vaccine, I suppose. Nothing major in either case... no worse than a typical flu vaccination so far.

Second dose is scheduled in four weeks.

We're both relieved, knowing that we're "in process", even though we know we won't actually have any useful immunity built up for several weeks.
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jwhouk
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Re: First dose of vaccine

Post by jwhouk »

Already have dose #1 of the Pfizer vax in me. I’m set for dose #2 on the 19th.
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Typeminer
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Re: First dose of vaccine

Post by Typeminer »

Congrats!

County where I live has about the same population as the state of Wyoming, but no county health department, and there is almost no supply of vaccine, and no coordination. Friends who have health issues who have tried to schedule an appointment are extremely pissed off. I'm just waiting for reasonable guidance and hoping things ease up before the new strain obsoletes the mRNA vaccines.
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Dave
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Re: First dose of vaccine

Post by Dave »

Typeminer wrote: Thu Feb 11, 2021 8:00 am Congrats!

County where I live has about the same population as the state of Wyoming, but no county health department, and there is almost no supply of vaccine, and no coordination. Friends who have health issues who have tried to schedule an appointment are extremely pissed off. I'm just waiting for reasonable guidance and hoping things ease up before the new strain obsoletes the mRNA vaccines.
Bummer about the lack of availability in your area. I just saw today that the CVS drugstore chain has expanded its program for offering vaccinations, but this is being done on a state-by-state basis and they don't seem to be open in Pennsylvania yet.

Since the vaccine has to flow to the providers through whatever system the state government has set up, it's continuing to be a mess. Some states are well on top of the distribution issue, some are doing rather poorly with a great deal of confusion (California is one of the latter).
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Dave
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Re: First dose of vaccine

Post by Dave »

It was just announced that Rite Aid is starting its vaccination program, beginning tomorrow (Friday 2/12), in seven states.

Pennsylvania is one of them.

If I'm reading the article correctly, the vaccine shipments will come directly from the Federal government - they won't have to go through a state or county distribution process.
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Dave
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Re: First dose of vaccine

Post by Dave »

Challenger007 wrote: Thu Mar 04, 2021 4:08 am When will you get the second dose? Already, in theory, there should be repeated administration of the drug. It is very interesting to know how you feel after vaccination and in general how difficult it is to be tolerated. I heard that the second dose is more difficult to perceive. Although, maybe these are just rumors or individual moments.
My wife and I are scheduled to get our second dose of the Moderna vaccine one week from today. I'll let you know how we feel afterwards.

I've heard mixed reports about reactions to the second dose - it seems to vary. Some people report more side effects then from the first dose... maybe a stronger immune reaction once the immune system has been primed. On the other hand, an 80-year-okd friend and his wife said that the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine felt like a nothingburger - less arm soreness than the first and no systemic effects at all.

When we had the Shingrix vaccine a couple of years ago, both of us felt the second dose more than the first. I had enough aches and fatigue the next day that I took a sick day off and lay around in bed.

I can definitely say that both of us are feeling a lot better now that we're "on the vaccine train". We are not relaxing our precautions at all yet, and probably won't for another month or so. However, knowing that even the partial immunity we've built up in the last three weeks is probably enough to prevent serious illness or death if we were to be exposed is a big relief.
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Dave
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Re: First dose of vaccine

Post by Dave »

We got our second doses of Moderna yesterday at 11 AM. Very fortunate we were, that the county had sufficient vaccine in stock for us and didn't defer or cancel our appointments. There's a real shortage this week, they're not signing people up for first-dose appointments, and the vaccination site had far fewer people going through it than we saw a month ago. We were in and out in under half an hour.

Our reactions: really different.

Me: almost nothing yesterday. I developed slight soreness at the point of injection overnight (still there now). Maybe some minor body aches and malaise, but nothing much.

Gwen: boom. She was fine through the day, but developed a whole raft of side effects overnight: headache, nausea, chills (no fever though), and arthritic pain in every joint. Definitely a stronger reaction than the first time. I've bedded her down with tea, toast, omelet, yogurt, and the TV remotes, and said "No work today, sleep whenever you can."

I'd read that women seem to be having stronger reactions to the mRNA vaccines than men do (also true for some other vaccines, and the opposite is true for a few). That does seem to have been the case for the two of us, so far at least.
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Re: First dose of vaccine

Post by Typeminer »

This past week, the county opened a mass vaccination center in a failed anchor store of an old regional destination shopping center. I registered for vaccination, but no recontact yet. It's set up to process 6000 people per day, but they had only 5000 doses this week, and something shy of 35,000 applicants within a day of opening the portal.

Some of my friends have gotten the first dose through pharmacies or various medical networks, but it's hit or miss, and they were actively chasing it. All the med networks I'm registered in are participating in the mass center. My nephew-in-law is a fire-fighter in the county across the river, and he's now fully vaccinated. They have a new kid, so I'm glad for that. Niece is eligible through either the Army Reserve or her civilian army depot job, but they're at the stage where mom gets no sleep, and dad is on a different shift at the station every week, so she hasn't pursued it yet.
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AnotherFairportfan
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Re: First dose of vaccine

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I need to sign up with the VA for it; the catch there is that i'm not sure where they're doing the shots - if it's at the main VA hospital, that's a hundred-mile round-trip.
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Dave
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Re: First dose of vaccine

Post by Dave »

Gwen's reaction to the second shot was a one-day thing, as we had hoped. She took ibuprofen and Tylenol, slept for four hours yesterday afternoon, awoke feeling substantially better, and is back to feeling normal today.

So, keeping the day after each shot as a "might need to take a sick day, don't schedule anything critical" is probably wise if it's practical. All in all, though, the two shots combined added up to less discomfort than one average winter cold... much less, in my case.

I'm really hoping that J&J/Merck can crank up manufacturing of their vaccine quickly. It's going to be an important part of getting vaccines out into more-rural and lesser-served areas, since it's a lot easier to store. It's the sort of thing that most doctors and clinics could keep in stock without needing any new equipment.
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Re: First dose of vaccine

Post by Typeminer »

Very happy to report that I got the notice to schedule an appointment this morning, and after several failed attempts (bugs in the site configuration, fixed within a few hours), I am scheduled for the first shot (Pfizer, I think) on Monday afternoon (March 15).

That will be one year to the day since the last time I had a draft beer at a bar. The longest time between drafts since the first time I got served, when I was 17.

So I went out to get some few supplies for St. Patrick's Day--not planning to do much, but do want to have a whiskey and a Guinness Extra or two, so the old folks don't kick my ass from the grave--and I needed to gas up the car.

Last time I filled it was November 29. The car was in the shop for a month (hit and run while parked on the street, day before the city declared a snow emergency ahead of a storm), but still.

Whether I can recover my mental health (such as it was) after all of this remains to be seen. :mrgreen:

My winemaking buddy was feeling clobbered the second day after the first shot, but that easily could have been something else.
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Typeminer
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Re: First dose of vaccine

Post by Typeminer »

About the J&J--I'm glad to see the push for overcapacity now. We need to vaccinate the world, ASAP, and we could use some goodwill. Also, if this turns into a seasonal variant thing, like the flu, it will be a good investment.
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TazManiac
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Re: First dose of vaccine

Post by TazManiac »

🤓, PS- currently in line for 1st dose Pfizer vaccine...

edit- First Dose onboard, I'm currently sitting for 15 mins to check for advese reactions...

PS- all seems well the day after; only slightest of soreness at injection site, no other affects. Oops, effects... 👍
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AnotherFairportfan
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Re: First dose of vaccine

Post by AnotherFairportfan »

Was scheduled to go the the VA Center in Atlanta {50 miles, one-way} on 15 April for the first dose.

I had a routine phone consult 29 March with my primary at the VA Oakland clinic - about 14 miles; She said that they had the vaccine, she'd see if it was possible to get me set up for there.

30 March, got a call, arranged to come in on 7 April at Oakwood.

31 March - got a call; if i could be there in less than an hour, they could shoot me that day.

Made it, got it.

Scheduled for the second jab on 28 April.

Only effects were mild soreness in the shoulder {still slightly present on 3 April} and possible fatigue/lassitude; also possibly attributable to only five hours sleep.

The effects are negligible compared to flu shots*, yellow fever and plague shots {1969, going to Viet Nam} and absolutely NOTHING compared to the Salk polio vaccine**.

=====================================

* I almost never get the flu - only had it seriously about twice in the last thirty or so years; the shot always makes me sick. I've been riding those odds for a LONG time - occasionally, when the flu season looks REALLY bad, i get the shot - especially since these days i get it free at the VA

** I relatively recently realised {like within the last fifteen or twenty years out of seventy-three} that it was a screaming panic attack (at about age eight - 64 years ago} at the prospect of the second Salk polio vaccine booster {the initial shot and the first booster having both left me miserable for days} that led to my lifelong needle phobia...
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Dave
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Re: First dose of vaccine

Post by Dave »

Now this is the sort of vaccine response I love to see. (Hover your cursor over the image for what's probably today's best computer-nerd pun).

https://xkcd.com/2446/
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TazManiac
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Re: First dose of vaccine

Post by TazManiac »

Thx Dave, I both chuck·le'd and guf·faw'd at that link...
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AnotherFairportfan
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Re: First dose of vaccine

Post by AnotherFairportfan »

Dave wrote: Tue Apr 06, 2021 12:47 pm Now this is the sort of vaccine response I love to see. (Hover your cursor over the image for what's probably today's best computer-nerd pun).

https://xkcd.com/2446/
yep
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Warrl
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Re: First dose of vaccine

Post by Warrl »

Our primary healthcare provider has bugged us a few times to get on their website and schedule an appointment.

They're in Montana.

We're currently in Arizona.

Not in a hurry... we'll probably be up there about the end of the month.
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Dave
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Re: First dose of vaccine

Post by Dave »

Warrl wrote: Tue Apr 06, 2021 11:33 pm Not in a hurry... we'll probably be up there about the end of the month.
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Re: First dose of vaccine

Post by Typeminer »

Have you missed riding along the border in the moonlighty night? :mrgreen:
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