Originally Posted by
Stray Gator
I received my second Moderna shot yesterday at 10:30 am, and thought it might be helpful to share the results after 24 hours. To put it in context, I am a 72-year-old man in good health with no underlying medical issues.
Following the first shot four weeks ago, I experienced only mild soreness localized at the vaccination site on my upper arm, which started in the late afternoon but was gone by the following afternoon. I had read that the second jab tends to produce more significant side effects in a higher number of people -- though it seems the impacts of the Pfizer vaccine generally exceed those of the Moderna; but I typically do not have any reaction to inoculations, so I went into post-second-shot phase with no particular expectations.
About 8 hours after the second shot, I started feeling some soreness in the upper arm similar to the aftermath of the first shot, but it was a little more pronounced. I sensed the soreness only when I lifted my arm and moved it around, not when it was lowered by my side and at rest. When I went to bed around midnight -- almost 14 hours after the second shot -- that was still the only effect I could feel, and it was not so severe as to make it difficult for me to fall asleep.
At about 3:30 am, I awoke, which is highly unusual since I normally sleep through the night with no problems. Surprisingly, I felt no discomfort of any kind, other than the soreness in my arm when I lifted it. But I had some difficulty getting back to sleep -- which may be attributable to the effects of the vaccine, but might just as easily be a result of the disturbance to my regular routine. In either case, I woke up again twice for very brief periods before my alarm went off at the customary time.
When I got up from bed, a little more than 20 hours after the vaccination, I noticed immediately that I had some of the familiar symptoms that others have described -- like a very mild case of flu, with some minor achiness/soreness across my shoulders and in my upper legs, along with a touch of "brain fog" and fatigue (the latter two being, again, similar to what I sometimes experience when I don't get a full night's sleep). About an hour later, I began to notice a slight headache -- which seemed remarkable, because it's extremely rare for me to get any kind of headache (unless I try to read too much without my reading glasses, LOL). But none of these side effects amounted to sufficient discomfort that I felt the need to take any medication, such as an analgesic.
Just after the 24-hour mark, about an hour ago, I could tell that even these effects were beginning to dissipate. Specifically, the muscle achiness, the brain fog, and the fatigue are now mostly gone. There's still some soreness in my arm where they gave me the shot, but it's subsiding, too.
It's evident that reactions to the vaccine are individualized, so your experience may be more or less unpleasant than mine. But to the extent that it might matter, I'd say that the temporary effects are a very small price to pay for the sense of relief and satisfaction that comes with knowing that we're doing all we can to protect ourselves and those around us from the risk of severe consequences from this virus.