Covid-19 vaccine done

I got the second shot of my Covid vaccine yesterday... 

Hi everyone, good to see you back here! 

Just a little update. I got the second shot of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine yesterday! 💉💉⭐️

How did it go?

Getting the vaccine was not a big deal at all. First of all, I had Steve driving me to Lucerne and back, which made it very easy.💕Like the first shot, the second shot itself was basically done in 5 minutes. You line up with everyone else, go into a cabin to get your shot, get your little vaccine sticker, wait for 15 minutes to see if you have any major allergic reactions, and then you are good to walk out. 

The moment I walked out, I did not feel any different than when I walked in. It feels strange, that such a tiny step, has such a big impact on our lives in the world we live in at the moment.🙃 

What side effects do I have?

In the car on the way home I could feel my arm getting a little sore. By the time we got home, I thought I'd better do whatever I need to do, because I expected to feel kind of ill the next day. So I started replanting some plants and tidying up things....🙃 

While doing this, I could feel a headache coming on, so I parked myself on the lounge to watch TV. Headache got increasingly worse, so I took a paracetamol and an antihistamine, which I used to take when I had headaches from IVIG infusions. Meds helped a bit, but not that much. So I went to bed, and thankfully slept.

Today I woke up with a pretty severe headache and overall feeling unwell. My back is sore, my arms and legs feel really tired and heavy, and I feel kind of cold. Overall, I just feel like I'm at the beginning of a cold. 

Luckily its Saturday, and I kept the day free to recover. So it's me and Netflix today.👀 Plus writing a little blog post☺️

After all, having vaccine reactions is a good thing...

Vaccine reactions are a sign that the body does what it's meant to do. My immune system is reacting to the Covid vaccine, so that next time it encounters a Sars Cov-2 virus, it will be ready to fight it. 

I have had diffferent immunosuppressants over the past few months, so it's good to know that my immune system is fit enough to react properly. So I will be happy to stick this out. I'd much rather spend today on the lounge than ending up with Long-Covid or something like that.💪🏻

Has it messed with my neuropathy?

Like I told you in one of my last posts, I was worried that a Covid vaccine, or any vaccine really, could trigger my immune system to overreact. People commonly say, that if you have an autoimmune disease, your immune system is in overdrive. So obviously you worry that something that stimulates your immune system would send it in over-overdrive. 

However, this theory does probably not really address the problem properly. I've heard many experts say, that in case of autoimmune diseases, one aspect of the immune system has taken a wrong turn at some point. So it's not the entire immune system that has gone completely wonky. But who knows really??? There is still a lot of work needed before we understand this properly. 

Advocates of the Covid vaccine always say, that there is no data suggesting that the Covid vaccine makes autoimmune disease worse. But I think it's a big differentce between having no data, and having data that show it doesn't happen. And there is no data showing it won't make it worse, because people with autoimmune diseases, and other chronic diseases, are always excluded from drug trials. 

I decided for myself, that being protected against Covid-19 is a priority for me right now. Especially because I have new treatments coming up suppressing my immune system. 

So far, my neuropathy is exactly the same as yesterday. It's not great at all, but it's been like this for 3-4 weeks. So 🤞🏼it will stay this way. 

Will I have a good enough vaccine protection?

There is also no data showing how people with immunosuppression or other chronic diseases react to the Covid vaccine. Thankfully, there are some people starting to look into this. But for now, it's just trial and error and hoping for the best. After all, vaccine protection is definitely better than without the Covid vaccine

I'm currently not on immunosuppression, and my last treatments are a while ago. So I think my vaccine reaction should be pretty good. And given that I feel miserable right now, I am definitely reacting.  

I'll wait long enough for vaccine protection to build up, before I start the next immunosuppression with daratumumab. During and after this treatment I will be immunosuppresed and theoretically more susceptible to infections in general. However, experience with daratumumab has shown, that people who got it, do generally not get sick a whole lot more. 

Plus the immune response from the Covid vaccine should not be destroyed once my immune system has geneerated the memory cells to remember this germ. It may be slightly reduced for the time during treatment, but I should be protected (knock on 🪵 ). 

And on this note I wish you all a happy weekend.💕 I am going back to Netflix and tea drinking now. 

If you want to be notified of future posts, click below to never miss a post❤

Categories: other medical stuff