Duration of Moderna vaccine side effects for the 2nd shot

[Not_a_Number]

As promised, a copy of my original Pfizer poll except for Moderna! I know that the previous poll suggested that Moderna hit people harder, which makes giving the dosage... curious if this shows up in this poll as well. 

ETA: Please only use this poll for YOUR OWN reaction. I think we'll get a very skewed poll if we do it for other people. 

Edited May 21, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Not_a_Number]

@Spy Car, you said you had Moderna, right? 

[Spy Car]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

@Spy Car, you said you had Moderna, right? 

I did. I had Moderna. My wife and son had Pfizer. 

They both had a day in bed, so the answer to the second question would be an easy yes, and less than 24 hours.

I'm in a quandary about how to answer the second question myself. I had a gnarly headache for a few hours, was rather tired that day. I guess I'll chose "severe enough to interfere with daily activity" (under 24 hours), but....

Bill

[Selkie]

I got the shot in the afternoon, spent the night feeling chilly and achy, and was completely back to normal by mid-morning.

Dh had no reaction at all.

Ds22 had a sore arm.

Ds20 and dd18 felt mildly tired and achy that night and were better by the next morning.

[Elfknitter.#]

I answered for a relative who had it. Their reaction lasted about 4 days and they returned to work on day 5.

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Elfknitter.# said:

I answered for a relative who had it. Their reaction lasted about 4 days and they returned to work on day 5.

Are they the only person you know who had Moderna?

[Innisfree]

I got the vaccination late in the afternoon. That evening I developed the standard sore upper arm, but not enough to disturb my sleep. Next day I got up and went out to work in the garden, then paused late in the morning to wonder if I always felt quite that achy. Rested a bit, fixed supper, no further effects, other than the arm staying sore a bit longer-- I can't remember exactly how long, but not a big deal.

[Elfknitter.#]

8 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Are they the only person you know who had Moderna?

No. I have an older relative (early 70s) who simply had a sore arm. My coworkers had reactions 24-48 hours after and they were headaches, fatigue, and achy joints.

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Elfknitter.# said:

No. I have an older relative (early 70s) who simply had a sore arm. My coworkers had reactions 24-48 hours after and they were headaches, fatigue, and achy joints.

Makes sense 🙂 . Glad your relative didn't have severe side effects. 

I think that if we all enter in the person we know with the most severe side-effects, we'll get a very skewed poll, though 😞 . I'll add a note about only entering in one's own side effects, I think. 

[carriede]

I had a sore arm for 3 days after the first shot, only sore for 1 day after the second.

DH, though, he had a sore arm after the first shot, but the second shot knocked him out for about 24 hours. Tired and achy all over with a fever. No sore arm though. He took one day off work. But then he had night sweats the night his fever broke and again 2 nights later.

[historically accurate]

I answered the poll for me only, but here is a list of the people's side effects that I know about. I had a sore arm for about a day. I didn't have any other side effects,.

My DH (Moderna): his arm was REALLY sore. DH doesn't complain about much, but he complained about this. He had no other side effects.

My brother (Moderna): 5 hours of fatigue - he said his evening was shot because he was so tired, but he was fine the next morning. No sore arm even. 

My mom (Pfizer): sore arm and napped a couple of times the day after.

My aunt (Pfizer): flu-like sickness for the 24 hours afterward.

My MIL (Pfizer): her RA seemed to flare, lots of joint pain about 3 days after shot. She's been having trouble with chest pains starting about a month out from her second dose. I don't know if it is related in any way to the vaccine or not or simply coincidence. She's had multiple tests with no resolution or even a guess on what's causing it.

My BIL (J & J): One full day of feeling flu-like crappy, 2 days of stomach upset (though to be fair, his stomach is notoriously touchy).

My SIL (J&J): not even a sore arm. She was complaining she wanted a big reaction to know her body was working hard (like her husband's) and she got zippo.

My co-workers (I don't know if Pfizer or Moderna, but all were 2 shot doses): two had no side effects other than sore arms. One had chills for about 12 hours. One had pretty severe headaches for about 4 days, but she woke up on day 5 with not even a twinge of a headache.

None of these people had Covid, excepting my brother who may have had it before testing was available. 

 

[Shoeless]

I had Moderna. It was about 36 hours of feeling like I had a bad flu: fever, chills, fatigue, aches. The side effects wanted over the final 12-ish hours.

It probably would not have been so bad if I had taken Tylenol earlier, but I was trying to power through without it. DH called shenanigans on that and I eventually took some, but I don't remember how many hours into it. 

[Faith-manor]

Covid arm. Couldn't play the piano very well for a week. Fever for 48 hrs, fatigue for 72 hrs, and bad headache for 24.

[Danae]

Timing from receiving the shot, or from start of effects?  Because all my effects lasted less than 24 hours, but didn’t start until 20 hours or so after I got the shot.

[eternallytired]

I hadn't really considered Danae's quandary, but I suppose that could change my answer.  I got the shot around 10 am and felt perfectly fine until about 12 hours later (other than a sore shoulder).  I then spent about 24 hours with a 102 fever and a headache, and an additional 24 hours feeling completely wiped out (and my temp was doing weird things, running a degree low and then a half-degree high and then down again).  So I had 48 hours of actual effects, but they didn't start until 12ish hours in, so a total of 60 hours.  I counted that as 24-48 hours of interfering with my normal activity and 48-72 hours of total effects (since I did manage to drag myself out of bed and teach that last day, despite feeling exhausted).  I did have a huge swelling at the injection site--visible through a tshirt--for about five days, but I'm leaving that out as being in the "sore shoulder" category.

My parents also had the Moderna shot.  My dad just had a mild headache for about 24 hours, and my mom spent the following day in bed because she was so exhausted she could only stay awake for an hour at a time.  Both were feeling fine by day 2 (which would have been about 40 hours post-shot when they woke up--but they were probably fine some time in the night).

[HeartString]

I felt fine until right at 12 hours after my 2nd shot. Then got fatigue and body aches which lasted until hour 36, then felt just tired from hour 36 to 48, then it was gone.  I felt a bit easily winded for a few days, kind of like when you’re getting over being sick.   Just a bit out of breath after climbing the stairs type thing.  

[Not_a_Number]

16 hours ago, Danae said:

Timing from receiving the shot, or from start of effects?  Because all my effects lasted less than 24 hours, but didn’t start until 20 hours or so after I got the shot.

Yeah, I agree that that's a quandary and that I left it up to people to decide! I think a lot of people have been counting from the start of effects. 

[Not_a_Number]

Wow... this one is very obviously harder on people than Pfizer 😕 . Given that I had a rather bad response to Pfizer, I'm really glad I didn't get Moderna. 

[AngieW in Texas]

I was the only one in my family to get Moderna. Everybody else got Pfizer. I had no problems at all with the 1st shot, not even injection site soreness. I had minimal issues with the 2nd shot. I couldn't sleep on the arm the injection was in that first night, but was fine aside from minor soreness for 2 days after that. I got the shot at 10am and ran a low-grade fever (99 degrees, usually 97.9) around 6pm that day. After I sat down and drank some water, it went away. It came back again about 2 hours later so I sat to drink water and it went away again. The second day I was very thirsty all day long and drank a ton of water. I was also physically exhausted. I was completely back to normal the 3rd day.

The shot that was available for all of my kids was Pfizer (they're all adults). They would have taken any of them. This is just what was available for the appointment slots I was able to get for them. After my thirst issues, I pushed my kids to drink lots of water for the two days after the 2nd shot.

My oldest who has no medical issues didn't have any issues at all with either shot aside from minor soreness at the injection site for about 2 days.

My middle who has an autoimmune disorder that causes her immune system to attack her spinal cord had no issues with the 1st shot. With the 2nd shot, she started having numbness in her arms. She talked to her neurologist who said that is a common issue with patients who had transverse myelitis and/or MOG antibody disorder (her MOG presented as TM with numbness in her arms and torso) and didn't signal a relapse. It was just the immune system jangling a bit. He did have her take her emergency steroid prescription to calm it down. She was completely exhausted on day 2, but after that was fine.

My youngest who has Ehlers Danlos and is deathly allergic to steroids had a sore arm with the first dose and couldn't sleep on that arm for the 1st three nights. They had no problem at all with the 2nd dose and could sleep on that arm the very first night. They did have one oddity that we figured out in retrospect. Both doses caused their period to come back again. They'd just had an endometrial ablation a few weeks before the 1st dose, so we weren't sure if the period weirdness was related to that or to the vaccine, but their period started up again on the 1st night of each dose.

[AmandaVT]

I had a very sore arm (I said it felt like I was stabbed in the bone with a vampire stake) for a day. Other than that, I was a little achy and sleepy for a few hours about 18 hrs after the shot. Maybe 3-4 hrs? 

[LBK]

I was nervous ahead of my second dose, but all I had was a really sore arm for 2-3 days (less than with the first dose oddly), and about 12 hrs post-shot a flu-like achiness, fatigue, and fever. By the second full day after the shot, all was normal again.