Immunosupressants and Vaccine

[boon]

On the British Lung Foundation website it says

'It’s safe for people who are immunosuppressed to get the vaccine, but it’s not clear yet how effective it will be for this group of people. So, if you’re immunosuppressed, it’s very important you continue to take steps to protect yourself from catching the virus, even after you’ve had the vaccine. It’s worth asking those you live with to do these as well.'

Has anybody heard anything different to this? Or does anybody know when we might know how effective it is for imunosuppressed? Just worried for my mum who is really struggling with shielding from her family and grandchildren and hoping at some point in the future to be able to be close to us all again.

Oh god. The vaccine is the only thing keeping my immunosuppressed 63 year old mum from throwing herself off a cliff. Her mental health is really not good but she’s been a lot happier recently knowing she should get the vaccine by end Feb & be able to more safely bubble with us (we have a baby).. 😬

Screen shots from the training material. Tbf everyone who has the vaccs will be advised to socially distance, wear masks etc still.

The vaccine was initially tested on healthy volunteers, so there’s less data for immunosuppressed people. As more people have it though more data will be available. It doesn’t mean that it won’t work fully, they just don’t have enough evidence that it does yet. Better safe than sorry.

I Spoke to my GP who said that, as the vaccine is not live, it will be safe for me. However, it may not be as effective as i would want.

I’m not sure that I count as immunosuppressed in quite the same way - I have blood cancer

It’s similar message - both types of vaccine are safe to receive and there is no reason why they definitely wouldn’t work, but they don’t know for sure that they will. I’ve heard (from a major charity) that they expect there will be post-immunisation investigation on whether the vaccine has had the intended effect. But I’m not sure how extensive the survey will be.

Yes had similar information for immunosuppressed RA patients however the more people that are immunised in the general population the less circulating virus which reduces the risk to those that cannot be vaccinated or that are in the group where the vaccine may be less effective.
It's good that we can be immunised though at all as quite often we can't be if only live vaccines exist.

@MoiraRoses my mum is exactly the same. Shes not in a great place mentally right now at all. 😔

But surely if they heavily advise my mum get the flu vaccine for example, then vaccine must work for the immunosuppressed?! I know these are new vaccines & scientifically they cannot know for sure but I think we can be reasonably hopeful!

I’ve been trying to find info about this too. I’m on immunosuppressants. I had a conversation with my consultant about it and he told me there are concerns that immunosuppressed people may not have such a good immune response to the vaccine, that is to say they may produce less antibodies than anticipated. But there is no data on this yet. He advised to have the vaccine (this was when the Pfizer had been approved but not yet the Oxford), on the basis that any protection it gives is better than none. I think I’d suggest try to seek advice from your own specialist if possible, as I guess people are immunosuppressed to different degrees, depending on their condition and medication. Also, what I took from his advice was, maybe you will make sufficient antibodies - it’s not a definite no this won’t help.

My shielding notification said I should continue to follow shielding advice even after receiving both doses of vaccine while they monitor the vaccine groups. I’m not sure exactly what that means, whether the full shielding lockdown advice or the shielding advice that goes along with each Tier, I guess they’ll give us more info as time goes on.

Best wishes for your mum @boon

I’ve been on Azathioprine for 25 years for Ulcerative Colitis and asked about this during my last phone apt with bowel clinic. Was told - as others have said - that it’s fine to have as not live vaccine, that as nothing has been tested on those taking immunosuppressants we don’t know if it will work quite as well as on those who don’t take them but I was told much better to have it than not- which has always been my plan. Hoping it won’t be long til I get it.