When Dr. Maureen Ford received her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine for COVID-19, the only side effect was a mildly painful arm.
The second dose hit her harder. Ford, an emergency room physician for Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo, was given the second chance after finishing a Friday shift. She woke up the next morning with “some chills and muscle aches,” she said, and by noon she was so tired that she took a two-hour nap.
“I just had to take a few doses of ibuprofen” to get through, Ford said. “All things considered, I was 100% within 36 hours.”
While it was uncomfortable not feeling well for part of her weekend, Ford said she was “happy” with the side effects.
“I knew it was just my body making those antibodies” against COVID-19, she said. “It took some energy and triggered a small immune response.”
Ford’s experience is quite typical.
“When we started our second-dose clinics, we noticed an increase in side effects logging,” says Dr. Christine Nefcy, chief medical officer for Munson Healthcare in Traverse City.
“Most of the time they are what we expected – they generally feel unwell for a day, swollen lymph nodes in the armpit,” she said. “Those are all signs that your immune system is kicking in and doing what it’s supposed to do.”
In that regard, the side effects are a positive sign, Nefcy said, leading to a situation of good news-bad news for seniors. “They tend not to have this robust immune response,” she said. That means fewer side effects from the vaccine, but it can also mean fewer antibodies are produced.
Todd Belding, pharmacy manager at Sparrow Hospital in Lansing, said he heard the same things from his colleagues who received their second dose of vaccine.
“We certainly hear that people respond more after the second dose than the first dose,” he said. “I hear that from one to three, four days after, people can feel tired and have a sore arm for maybe a week. But these are good things; it shows an immune response. “
He added that many people try to schedule their shots for when they are off the next day, but when that isn’t possible, “they discover they can take some Motrin or Tylenol and work through their shift.”
The most commonly reported side effects of the Pfizer vaccine were fatigue, headache and muscle pain. Smaller numbers reported chills, joint pain or fever, according to the federal Food and Drug Administration’s briefing paper.
The Moderna vaccine has similar side effects: injection site pain, fatigue, headache, muscle pain, joint pain and chills, according to the FDA briefing paper. Swollen lymph nodes have also been reported.
Dr. Frank Rosenblat, an infectious disease specialist at McLaren Health in Pontiac, noted that not everyone experiences side effects.
“I had no side effects on either dose,” he said, and from his colleagues, “I’ve heard all kinds of stories about both vaccines. I’ve heard the second was awful or the first awful, or both were okay, and that’s with both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. There’s really no rhyme or reason I can choose ”in terms of how someone will react to the shots.
“But one of them has what you would call a serious side effect,” he added. “You can lie in bed all day, but nothing that is life-threatening or what we would call a serious side effect.”
And it’s much better to experience mild side effects than to have the coronavirus yourself, Ford said.
“We know that COVID can be anything from asymptomatic to respiratory failure and death,” she said. “What worried me are those long-term health problems – those nonspecific, persistent problems of tachycardia, shortness of breath, and things we don’t really understand. Nobody wants that.
“So I got the pictures knowing there could be some symptoms, but also knowing it would be protection for myself and my community,” Ford said. “It’s only part of fostering the pandemic response.”
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