there are central records in new york, but somehow it didn’t make it there. they said they will rectify that after we called them.
From today’s Philadelphia Inquirer, citing the Washington Post
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The office set up for flu vaccines, so I took advantage. Awaiting their offering of the COVID booster.
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Thanks. It is a bit reassuring that both Moderna and Pfizer are touting the effectiveness of their respective bivalent vaccines.
Short answer: No. Some (many?) states maintain databases, but flow of data into those databases is imperfect.
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my father had a mild reaction to the bivalent booster, low grade fever and his blood pressure and pulse spiked. it seemed to happen at night after getting the jab late morning. i think he’s better now.
it was a lot worse with the moderna series where he couldn’t even get up or eat anything after.
i’m confused why he had no reaction to the pfizer booster he got a year ago though, but had a mild reaction to the pfizer bivalent booster.
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Whatever is different about the bivalent booster may have bothered your dad more than the other shot.
He’s also a year older than last time.
And I think there’s some randomness to it too. On any given day his immune system might be in a different spot. Maybe this time he’d just been exposed to flu and his immune system was busier fighting that off already whereas his immune system wasn’t too busy last time. I think you just don’t / can’t know on some of that stuff.
yeah, but he was almost 2 years younger when he got the moderna series that he reacted badly to. i don’t think that’s a factor.
might be the randomness and also pfizer isn’t as strong as moderna.
for me, my reactions were very similar with the 2 moderna boosters i got.
I was talking to a friend who has been running a weekly seminar on virology that he started in response to the pandemic. He said that his latest speaker researched the question of whether your reaction to the vaccine is correlated to the strength of your immune response to covid after being vaccinated. It’s been “folk wisdom” that it does, and that feeling crappy after the vaccine means it’s working better, but of course we don’t actually know that until someone researches it.
Anyway, the research found that yes, there is a correlation. You obviously don’t want to be wiped out by the vaccine, but it’s probably a good sign if you ache or have a bit of a fever or feel tired after getting it.
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Im not gonna lie I’m a little hesitant about the bivalent booster. After getting my original shots and also the first booster in 2021, I experienced heart palpitations for 1-2 months very frequently, and had constant ringing in my ears. In addition to that, I felt really sick the day after my 2nd original dose and the booster (103 fever, headache, chills, etc). I can deal with a day of sickness fine, but it is the heart/ear stuff that gives me a bit of pause.
I got COVID earlier this year in the spring and it was very mild. Basically the sniffles, and a slight headache/sore throat one night. I did not have heart palpitations at or after this time. I do think that the vaccines reduced the severity of it for me. Vaccines are a modern marvel of scientific achievement - i got my flu shot last week.
I think ill talk to my doctor about it.
I probably wouldn’t get the bivalent booster in your situation. That sounds awful.
If you already got omicron, you may not even get much benefit from the bivalent booster. Yeah, talk to your doctor.
I have a friend who got really sick from her last covid vaccine, and her doctor ordered a count of her antibodies. She has WAY more antibodies to covid than most people have right after being vaccinated. No, she doesn’t need another vaccine.
Donny Osmond has the flu. 
I’ve been pretty sick (fever, unable to work for at least 2 days) after each vaccine. So not a severe reaction but one that makes me have to really think about and plan when I get the vaccine. I haven’t had the bivalent yet. (Booster was late July.)
I need to get my second shingles shot and I am just dreading it. I think I’ll get it the first Sat of December just to have it over with. Then I’ll do my next Covid booster early January, but on a Friday afternoon so I won’t miss work.
Sounds like you are doing it wrong. Get the shot Monday morning, then use sick days! (and shut off all computers…)
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Except that we have one bank of “personal time” and I’m tired of using so much of my time being sick.
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yeah, even with separate sick time, this isn’t an amazing idea when i’ve been feeling sick much of the year with mystery illnesses. work still needs to get done. therefore, i got the booster on a saturday.
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When scheduling my last couple of vaccine experiences (flu, COVID, shingles), I made a point to schedule them when I had no commitments for the two following days because of my propensity to react.
For normal people, that would probably translate to getting shots Friday afternoon/evening and vegging out at home over the weekend.
My most recent shots were over Columbus Day / Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. My family does the fall get-together that weekend. So I visited with family on Saturday, drove home and got my shots (COVID and second shingles) on Sunday, and prayed for death on Monday, which was a non-work day for me because I work with a bunch of Canadians. I was still feeling rough on Tuesday, but I was able to get some work done.
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Is shingles vaccine often a problem? I also need to get my second one before the end of the year. Fortunately 0 problems for me from the first one. I’m thinking next week. Retire, so interaction with work is a non-issue. I need to travel for a week in December, so I was planning at least a week before that, just to be sure.
I’ve heard the second is often worse than the first. I got my first with my previous Covid booster so I can’t say which shot caused my reaction.