My COVID19 vaccine experience: Boosted!

I received my COVID19 booster vaccine last Sunday and am now fully vaccinated against COVID19 – and more! I don’t know if this makes me feel more confident about my slow return to The Real World or not, but I do know that I am protected as best as I can be. And that’s something to be grateful for!

My experience for my booster jag was very different than my first two doses, as was my flu jag experience a few weeks prior. This was, in part, because I had a Modern vaccine this time around. Because of the difference in not only the practicalities of the vaccine but also the side effects, this post will have a different flow as compared to my posts about my first dose and second dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID19 vaccine.

Note: This post is intended to share my experience for my own records and future memory prompts. However, I hope that it might serve as useful information for anyone who might stumble upon it in the search for answers to their own vaccine questions. Please remember that your experiences may vary and that this is not meant to be medical advice in any form. That said, I do welcome conversations so please feel free to ask questions, comment, or share your own experience at the end of this post.

For my first two doses, I was contacted directly by my local doctor’s office for an appointment at their surgery – rather than going to a mass vaccination centre. This is because I am on the shielding list due to my two major, life-long medical conditions and my lack of a spleen and am therefore on the priority lists for the COVID19 vaccination programme as a “clinically extremely vulnerable” adult. This time around, I was sent a text message, email, and letter for an appointment at a different local GP’s office where they were providing both flu jags and COVID19 boosters to people on the vulnerable list in a smaller setting.

Although it was a little more complicated than that for me. (Of course!)

So, let me back up to early October. That’s when I got an invitation letter for a flu jag at a vaccination centre in a town a few miles away. They were doing both flu jags and COVID19 boosters for those who were eligible for the booster. Only on the day of my appointment, I was two weeks shy of my 6-month gap for the booster. So, I only got the flu jag. But I got a “super” flu jag, as I was invited to a clinic for people aged 70+. And that means a slightly different mix meant to help boost my immune system a bit.

A few days later, I got another letter inviting me for a flu jag and COVID19 booster at the smaller, local GP’s office. But it still would have been too early for my COVID19 booster, so I couldn’t attend. (Very frustrating, but I am generally a rule-follower, so I accepted this.)

However, I think that I then got a little lost in the shuffle because I didn’t get invited for my COVID19 booster until a couple of weeks after I should have had it. Which was fine, as I hadn’t been out and about in The Real World.

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional, nor do I have any professional health or fitness qualifications. This post is about my personal experiences with receiving the Moderna COVID19 vaccine booster. It is meant as an informational starting point – not as medical advice. Please consult your medical team if you have any questions or concerns about your own health.

OK. Moving on to the actual booster now…

My booster dose was Moderna, and I was a little worried about the side effects as I’d heard people talking about how ill they felt afterwards. That meant that I was feeling quite anxious about it and a little worried that I would be quite unwell for a day or two.

Indeed, I was all prepared (as with the first two doses) with everything I might need should I feel miserable. I was even prepared to start listing down my side effects so that I had a record of everything I experienced.

But in the end, there weren’t really any specific issues. With the first two doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca, I had chills, a (slight) fever, and a headache, along with interrupted sleep, however, the side effects from the Moderna booster were “simply” a sore arm and feeling dehydrated. That’s it.

Well, there was a bit more.

First, the sore arm: My arm felt a “normal” level of post-vaccine tenderness on the first day, but the soreness increased on day two before subsiding towards the end of day three. (Gone by day four.) The soreness wasn’t as bad as I experience with my 5-year pneumonia boosters (when I can’t move my arm for a couple of days) but it was a little sorer than a flu jag. It also radiated a bit into the inner arm (armpit) a bit.

Second, the dehydration: At first, I put the dehydrated feeling down to the “celebratory” prosecco I had the night before my booster or a side effect of my kidney medication. But when I was still feeling extremely dehydrated (and slightly “hungover”) on the second and third days I decided it must be down to the vaccine. That feeling stayed with me through the third day then began to subside by the fifth day.

If I hadn’t just been vaccinated, I might have put these two side effects down to doing a little extra upper-body strength training and/or poor sleep because of stress or the prosecco for Paul’s birthday. But it was more than those “normal” complaints. (Although not enough to make like miserable by any means.)

Overall, I would say that my Modern booster was easier than my initial two doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca. But I would not shy away from another dose of either if it means keeping me safe from actual COVID19.

I am especially excited about having this booster because I will be returning to the office in the new year to do some in-person teaching for my new job. I am also making plans to give my parents real hugs in the next few weeks. Being fully vaccinated means that I can do these things with a little more protection and with a little more confidence. And after nearly two years of living a mostly isolated life, I am looking forward to these bold steps into The Real World!

If you are not vaccinated, please do consider getting vaccinated. Together, we can move beyond this global grief and begin to heal. But we need to work together.

Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional, nor do I have any professional health or fitness qualifications. This post is about my personal experiences with receiving the Moderna COVID19 vaccine booster. It is meant as an informational starting point – not as medical advice. Please consult your medical team if you have any questions or concerns about your own health.

If you would like to share your experiences with the COVID19 vaccine or to ask more questions about my experiences, please feel free to comment below (or contact me privately). As per my comments policy, you may comment with a fake name and a fake email if you don’t want to be identified either publicly (name) or by me (email).