At the time of writing, there has been over 490,000 deaths in the United States and more than 2,400,000 across the world due to COVID-19. As I wrote about here on my blog previously, I know people who’ve lost their lives to this terrible virus. I also know many more folks who’ve either lost their businesses/jobs to COVID, including myself.
So it really was a no-brainer that as soon as I had the opportunity to get the vaccine that I would take it. Getting the vaccine will help end the pandemic sooner and with fewer lives lost. The vaccine will also help our economy rebound and help us all get back to the things we love like travel, concerts, sporting events, dining out, and even just being able to see and hang out with our loved ones!
Now that I’ve had both doses of the Moderna vaccine, I felt that it was necessary to write up a little post about my experiences, good and bad, with each shot. So here is my full experience with the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.
Shot 1: I received my first shot on a Friday around 4:50 PM. The shot in my left arm was honestly painless, and I waited 15 minutes to make sure that I had no allergic reaction before I drove home. On my way home, I noticed that my arm was starting to hurt and by around 8pm that night it was really sore. Around 8:30 I was extremely fatigued and went to sleep. I jumped awake 2 or 3 times during the night which almost felt like a mini anxiety attack, but I now think that it might have just been caused by the pain in my arm.
On Saturday, I woke up feeling like I had a small head cold and was still just really tired. My left arm was completely killing me at this point (I couldn’t lay/sleep on it or touch the injection site) so I took some Motrin and just basically spent the day in bed watching TV.
On Sunday, I had a temperature of 99.9 and some chills and fatigue. I had another lazy day, but I was totally fine when I woke up on Monday.
Shot 2: I received my second Moderna shot exactly 28 days later this past Friday (Feb 12th) around 4pm. Once again the shot itself didn’t hurt at all but my arm almost started hurting immediately after this time. I waited the 15 minutes again and drove home.
This is where things started to become a different than the first shot. I felt pretty sick around dinner time, so I figured it was just best to go to bed early. I fell asleep from like 9PMish until around midnight but then it became way too uncomfortable to sleep. I spent most of the late night/early AM just trying to get warm as I was freezing cold and eventually I was able to get two more hours of sleep in the early morning hours.
Saturday was, no hyperbole, one of the worst sick days that I’ve ever had in my life. My fever peaked at 102.9 and all day long I had joint pains in what felt like every single joint in my entire body. I was also even colder than earlier, so I spent most of the day wrapped in many blankets and with all of the heating pads in our house. At one point, I even took a bath and turned the hot water to max and still could barely get warm. I alternated between Motrin & Tylenol throughout the day, which at times helped take the edge off slightly.
In addition to this, I also was pretty dizzy throughout the day on Saturday. The only time in my life that I can ever remember feeling this bad was when I had the flu a few years ago and had to go to the hospital with a 105 fever and dehydration. It wasn’t a great day, but it wasn’t COVID and I just kept reminding myself that it was for the greater good.
On Sunday, my fever stayed mostly around 100 during the day but it again rose beyond 101 at night. I still felt pretty sick (joint paints, dizziness, etc.), but the intensity of it all was definitely decreased from Saturday. If Saturday was a “very sick” day, then Sunday was just “normal sick” day.
My temperature was around 99.9 all day long on Monday, but my joint paint and dizziness had basically subsided. Stomach discomfort/issues popped up in their place, but it was still an improvement over the previous two days. I stopped taking my Motrin/Tylenol since my fever felt like it essentially was gone.
On Tuesday, I started feeling sick again just doing basic things around the house, so I checked my temperature and saw that it had spiked back up to over 100. The highest my temperature got to on Tuesday was 100.6, so I started my Motrin/Tylenol regiment again for the day. In addition to this, I still had the stomach discomfort from the day before.
Finally on Wednesday, I began to feel like myself again. My temperature was completely gone as were all the aches/pains/stomach discomfort/etc that had popped up the last few days. Wednesday I was just mostly really tired from having no full nights of sleep since Friday. I slept really good Wednesday night into Thursday!
In conclusion: I feel extremely lucky to have already received both vaccine doses, even if it did make me feel pretty awful for a few days. Out of everyone that I know who has gotten it so far, I had the most harsh reaction, though I did see some other people on Twitter having an experience similar to mine.
Most of the people that I know who’ve gotten their 2nd vaccine shot had a bad 12-24 hours and then were fine. It also looks like young adults are having harsher reactions to the 2nd shot than older adults because of their stronger immune systems, which makes sense. I’ve been told from people in the know that if this becomes a yearly thing (where you’d need a booster shot each year) that the booster wouldn’t be nearly as high of a dose as this 2nd vaccine, so the effects won’t be as harsh either. So that makes me feel better about getting it every year, if necessary.
While I had a bad few days, it’s absolutely nothing compared to being in the hospital fighting to breathe infected with COVID. If being sick at home for a day or two (or a few days in my case) means that we’re able to destroy COVID and get back to whatever our “new normal” looks like, I’m all for it. The vaccine, even at its absolute worse, is really nothing to be afraid of. I do hope that everyone who reads this gets it when they have the opportunity to do so. And if you have any questions about it/my experience, feel free to reach out!
