UPDATE: 2nd Dose DONE! Yesterday morning 3 of us went for our second Pfizer dose early in the morning. Here was our experience. First of all AGAIN a shout out to JFK Medical Center in Atlantis, FL Top notch professionals, friendly, reassuring and it was really cold here yesterday morning, 42 degrees! They had 2 big projection TV screens in the clinic that had on videos of a blazing fireplace! How nice! We were literally immediately taken in and given our shots and then went to a waiting area with coffee and snacks to watch for any allergic reactions. We were all fine BUT I will say my arm began to ache almost immediately. Both injections I took Benadryl beforehand just to be careful. They advised us to take a couple of Tylenol when we got home and again at bedtime. Well of course I’ve been stubborn my whole life and decided to go play pickleball for 2 hours LOL. By dinnertime both Denise and I were mostly fatigued with achy arms. Our friend felt the same. Went to bed and fell asleep but I woke up at midnight and proceeded to have a low grade fever, chills, shivering and horrendous body aches until I finally fell back asleep at 4 AM. I just got up at 10:30 AM and I’m MUCH improved. Denise only had some fatigue and achiness and the same for our friend. I’ll probably take it easy today and skip the pickleball. I’m VERY happy to have been able to get vaccinated. I’ll take a few hours of discomfort over potentially losing sense of smell and taste any day! I think both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are safe and excellent. J&J’s should be out soon and is a single dose. It’s not quite as effective . My fever and chills were simply my immune system kicking in when it recognized the Covid proteins again just like it’s supposed to! If you only have a mild side effect it doesn’t mean it’s not working. Please do your own research on this and make whatever decision feels right to you. I feel FREE today to very soon start living a somewhat normal life where we can actually be human again and interact with others. Please feel free to ask me any questions you might have to help you make your decision!
UPDATE 48 hrs post vaccine: We feel fine. Yesterday a little tired and slight headache…..like a mild hangover! LOL Arm pain nearly gone and we played some pickleball yesterday afternoon.
UPDATE: 24 hours post vaccine: Feel fine! Arm is a little sore but still only a 2 out of 10! Same for Denise!
Today began our journey back to a semblance of normalcy or what is more likely to be the “new normal”. I’ve been discussing the Covid-19 vaccines on several of my recent posts and hope they’ve been helpful in making a decision to get vaccinated. You can link to one here: https://drjonsicu.com/how-safe-and-effective-is-the-covid-19-vaccine-and-does-it-turn-you-into-a-gmo/
Florida is actually doing amazingly well at distributing the vaccine DESPITE what MSM thinks of us down here. For the REAL data on Covid cases and vaccinations distributed go to this link: https://floridahealthcovid19.gov/ As of 1/15 nearly 850,000 people have been vaccinated in Florida and 80,000 have COMPLETED the 2 shot series of Pfizer and Moderna. Hopefully the Johnson & Johnson SINGLE shot vaccine will be approved, in production and delivered. That should make compliance much better as there are around 40,000 overdue for the second shot. Just as a comparison NYC received 800,500 vaccines at around the same time as Florida and has only managed to dispense around 200,000! And they are the first to think WE don’t know what we’re doing down here…..THANK YOU Governor Ron DiSantis for your intelligent, well thought out guidance during Covid! TGIF Thank God It’s Florida!!
A HUGE shout out to the staff of JFK Medical Center in Atlantis, FL. An efficient, friendly, well thought out vaccination distribution plan. Today was for health care workers and law enforcement. We arrived at 6:30 AM and were immediately directed by staff to fill out information forms and sign informed consents. The informed consents were VERY detailed including descriptions of the active and inactive constituents of the vaccine. A comprehensive questionnaire also asked about previous allergic reaction history. There were also people there for their 2nd shot of the Moderna vaccine that they had received and distributed several weeks ago. The line grew quite long very quickly as there was some delay in preparing the previously frozen vaccine, but staff let us know that was the reason for the wait. They were great in answering patient’s questions and concerns about the vaccine and were reassuring that the vaccines were being well tolerated. They were also honest in letting us know about the common side effects of getting the vaccine. Some soreness at the injection site and fatigue are the most common after shot #1. Shot #2 is likely to be a bit more challenging with a day of low grade fever, aches and some chills. Next we moved into a VERY organized clinic with plenty of staff at each station to insure paperwork was in order and answer any questions you may have. Obviously EVERYONE has at least SOME anxiety in getting this new vaccine. I didn’t even feel the shot! Afterwards they had you wait 20 minutes at the end of the room, spaced 6 ft. apart. A welcome table of coffee, snacks, fruit and water was there for free while you made sure you didn’t have an allergic reaction…..btw….no one did! Something I did was take 25mg of Benadryl 30 minutes before my injection. I didn’t expect a severe reaction but I do react pretty badly to bee stings and as a child was allergic to the old Tetanus toxoid injection you would be given. I was fine.
This afternoon I went out and played an hour of pickleball. First time and loved it! My arm is slightly achy…..probably wouldn’t even have noticed it after pickleball if that had been my racket hand! I’m really feeling very calm and relieved to know that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. It truly is amazing that we have a vaccine this quickly. Of course there’s anxiety but do your own research and make a good decision for yourself and your family. I have friends who had Covid and some of them are still short of breath, fatigued and still can’t smell or taste MONTHS after. Look at it this way….you can either wait until you GET IT which is inevitable and doesn’t necessarily confer long term immunity or get vaccinated and help ALL OF US move on from this scourge. I know you want to “wait” to see how it goes…..but it’s not like they are currently working on some “other” version of the vaccine right now…….this is what we have. Safety and effectiveness trials (phase III) were NOT shortened and WERE successful. I’ll keep you up to date here over the next few days and after I receive shot #2. Stay well!
If I have an allergy to bees is this vaccine safe?
Depends on how fast you get the allergic reaction. If you use an Epipen, then you need to make special arrangements and let them know even though it’s VERY unlikely you’d have a reaction.
That group was a NIGHTMARE and they actually booted me for being pro-vaccine!!! LOONIES!!