Vaccine experiences please!

[Helptonight]

I've had my text, sitting on the fence and need some real experiences. I am early 40's, no health conditions. Not anti vax at all just struggling to decide whether or not to have it. Friends/relatives I have spoken to have experienced side effects (tiredness, fuzzy brain, no energy) since having it even a month or more down the line with 2nd dose being worse (AZ) Some report no reactions at all! I feel like if I am not sure then I shouldn't go ahead? I feel like I want to wait until further down the line before going ahead, is this silly?

Dose 1 AZ - flu like symptoms after around 12h, felt shite next day, then about 3 days of feeling under the weather but went to work, just felt tired and a bit rubbish.

Booked some days off for after the second AZ and had absolutely zero symptoms except mild soreness in the arm! Sod’s law!

I had the first jab of AZ about 7 weeks ago. Had a slightly sore upper arm for about 5 days. No other side effects. Second dose booked.

My parents and in laws have had all had two doses of Pfizer. No side effects all at.

My grandmother had two doses of Pfizer. Also, no side effects.

People I have known to have covid and be minor coughs and colds, or nothing, VS people Ive known taking days off work ill and exhasted after the jab is a massive put off to me, not that I have been offered yet.

I caught Covid March 2020. Not hospitalised, but pretty poorly. I'm still ill, now a year later.

Get vaccinated, I was, two months ago.

The side effects are nothing, compared to getting long covid. Trust me, I know!

Lost a work colleague, early 30’s and very healthy, another colleague got his and within minutes he was in a coma. Some colleagues sore arms for weeks, some headaches for weeks, one colleague felt like she was hit by a bus. I’m not on the fence now I’m not taking it

For me the only affect it had on me was wildly fluctuating energy levels for a day or so. I had the Pfizer one, DH and DS1 had the AZ, DH had dizzy spells for a few days but DS1 was properly ill for around a week.

I’ve had both of mine, Moderna. Both times I had a slightly sore arm, couldn’t sleep on that side, but it only lasted one night.

My adult son had Covid, you don’t want to risk getting this. Please add to herd immunity, it’s the best way out of this.

I’m so grateful and happy to have had my pokes. Finally we’re seeing light at the end of the tunnel.

Is this silly?

Yes ... have the vaccine fgs

I'm 40, no serious health conditions although I am overweight. I just had my first dose on Thursday. Apart from a lingering one sided headache I am feeling fine.
I understand how you feel because when I got the text Thursday morning, for a while I sort of panicked. I think it was because of the blood clot incidents but as the doctor talked me through the checklist he mentioned that only 5 in 1 million vaccinated people have suffered from blood clots. I know those 5 should never be classed as 'only' as they were someone's loved ones but I found the way he said it reassuring.
I still have a mild headache but am prone to headaches and migraines anyway so am hoping it'll get better soon.

Almost 29, no underlying health conditions, pfizer (first dose only now) sore arm, nothing else
DH, 32, no underlying health conditions, pfizer (first dose) no side effects
DM, 53, no underlying health conditions, AZ first one nausea, a bit of a fever, sore arm, second one no side effects
My grandfather. 83, no specific health conditions, pfizer, no side effects at either jabs

I've only had one dose and I was unwell for a week after but what was fascinating was that I had the side effects by rote! I was exhausted but had a fever, then headache, then sickness, then joint pain and then nothing. But even when I felt so unwell I could still breathe ok and I knew it would lift. That's the difference.

Please get it. Get some nice bits into eat and drink lots of fluids.

By not getting it you may disadvantage yourself for going on holiday or getting a new job or keeping the one you have.

Please get it.

I had Pfizer - nothing other than a sore arm.

People I know who’ve had covid include an early 30s woman with mild underlying health issues, who is still exhausted with ME type symptoms 9 months later, woman (early 50s no health problems) who ended up in ICU 200 miles from home (this was when beds were running out in London) but did make a decent recovery, and a 45 yo old male, no health issues that I know of, who died in ICU - leaving 3 young kids.

Honestly I would have it, you never know how it will hit you.

And all the fuss about blood clots are just because it’s new - lots of the meds we take have tiny risk of side effects, we just never think about it

I genuinely don’t mean to be nasty but it doesn’t feel fair that the rest of us who rely on facts and logic have to share the planet with willfully ignorant people who are unwilling or unable to apply the most basic critical thinking skills.

But you just said you've gathered your information from watching the news. Have you applied any critical thinking skills to anything you've watched?
The average age of death of covid is 82. The average age of death from anything else is 81.
99.7% won't die from covid.
What critical thinking skills have you applied?

There is a mumsnet coronavirus forum with lots of people posting all things vaccine related. www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus

Mildly sore arm on first
Very tired and lightheaded on second.
I’d rather have the side effects than have Covid.

By not getting it you may disadvantage yourself for going on holiday or getting a new job or keeping the one you have

None of these things is why anyone should take a drug and quite frankly these are coercive tactics. The only reason anyone should put a medication into their body is for their own individual health. Not because we're treated with no holidays.

*threatened

@ratinadollhouse You are right. We do analyse and manage risk all the time. But if I knew I was going to be one of the unlucky ones I wouldn't take the vaccine. And actually the risk of covid to a teen is lower than the risk of the vaccine. What level. Of risk is acceptable to benefit others? Guess we will all have different answers.
But OP isn't a teen so risk benefit is in favour of the vaccine. Anecdotes of sore arms or headaches written on here don't change that. And it wouldn't change it if someone popped up here saying they had been hospitalised with a potentially fatal blood clot either.

Moderna first dose 18 hours ago. Arm is bloody sore at the injection site so I had a crap sleep as I kept rolling onto it, but otherwise fine so far.

After having had the AZ jab yesterday afternoon, woke up at 6am feeling absolutely fine. I can feel where she put the needle, but that is all.
Last Saturday I had to take teenage ds to A and E as he knocked himself out doing jumps on his bike. Chatting to the young junior doctor, she told me about a a girl she had had to intubate due to Covid a few weeks ago. She told me she was younger than her, 24, with no health conditions at all. This was enough to convince me that having the vaccine was by far the right choice for me

Pfizer. 60+ Had both doses, no reaction whatsoever not even a sore arm.

Whatever you decide don't do what I did, twice! I offered my left arm on both occasions, the only side effect was a slightly sore are and I sleep on my left!

@Schrutesbeets

By not getting it you may disadvantage yourself for going on holiday or getting a new job or keeping the one you have

None of these things is why anyone should take a drug and quite frankly these are coercive tactics. The only reason anyone should put a medication into their body is for their own individual health. Not because we're treated with no holidays.

Nothing coercive about it! Every type of medication carries with it a risk, my view was that the risk of Covid out-weighed the risk of an adverse reaction. The fact remains that some aspects of life maybe impacted by not having it. On this site I have seen support expressed for the idea that a child whose parents refuse the usual childhood jabs should be excluded from some activities, even nursery or school, it's exactly the same situation.

Both myself, partner and MIL have had both jabs. MIL Pfizer, me and husband AZ. Side effects from all 3 no more than from any other jab, slightly sore arm at point of injection. We are in our 60s, MIL 90s. There are people in other parts of the world who would walk through broken glass to be safe from this awful disease. To hear self centred people say things like 'I don't need the vaccination ' or 'I have a strong immune system ' makes my heart sink. We need to protect all our population and the vaccine, or catching covid is the only way out. Of course there are concerns, but look at the illnesses that were widespread in my childhood and are now very rare due to vaccinations - polio, diptheria, smallpox, tuberculosis, measles, even cervical cancer is being beaten by vaccination. Get it done.

I have had both (was Pfizer as I’m HCP) and had a sore arm after 1st, slight headache after second.

I think you should get the vaccine- the side-effects are mild for the vast, vast majority of people. Some people do feel tired after- but I do have my suspicions that at least some of that may have other origins. I have nothing but anecdote and my observations of friends/family/acquaintances/patients to substantiate that, so perhaps rong. But, I have with almost perfect accuracy been able to guess which of the people I know would have “a bad reaction” or feel well “for weeks/months” prior to them having it. So I wonder if self-fulfilling prophecy. I’m not saying that it’s the same in every case, there are good physiological/immunological reasons why you’d have a sore arm/ache all over etc after having a vaccine- your body had to raise an immune response to trigger antibody development. But, for most people that should give rise to short-lived symptoms.

What I can say for sure is that if you catch covid and become seriously unwell, you’ll have some or all of those symptoms- only worse- possibly for many months. Or possibly years, or lifelong (we just don’t know). If you were to contract covid but only have mild symptoms- you could still develop long-covid- all those symptoms and more (chest pain, breathlessness, extend fatigue, palpitations). Of you could have it with few/no symptoms and pass it on to someone who goes on to develop serious illness/long-covid. The problem is, you just don’t know. I genuinely believe the risk of feeling slightly unwell for a short while is vastly outweighed by the benefits of having the vaccine in the vast majority of cases.

If you just want everyone else to have it, so you can see if it works out ok in the long run, I think that’s pretty unethical. What if everyone /far too many to allow efficacy did that? Where would we be?

I think you’re reasons for not having it seem pretty weak, but at the end of the day it’s up to you.