A friendly word of advice

[squidgiepdx]

This year's flu and COVID vaccines are pretty brutal. If you're going to get them, might I suggest getting them a week in between? Like get your flu vaccine on a Friday (for those who work regular Monday through Friday schedules), and then wait a week to get the COVID vaccine. 

If, perchance, you get the vaccines on the same day, make sure you have nothing planned for two days afterward. Because that's what we did, and we're both down for the count. As a matter of fact, Patrick actually got up this morning, had a cup of coffee, threw up, and then went back to bed.

I'm not quite as bad, but I still ache, am slightly nauseous, and have a headache that will not quit. I've had some yoghurt and three cups of tea, and I'm fighting staying awake. I mean it's good that our bodies are doing this, because it means the antigens the vaccines triggered are working. But JFC.

Good luck out there.

Comments

[elayna]

That’s tough. I got the flu by itself as I happened to be at the hospital and covid wasn’t available yet, and I had no reaction. So maybe it’s more the covid? Anyway, my dad is planning on getting both together so he only has one hospital visit, so I’ll warn him he might want to rethink. I hope you two both feel fine soon.

And now this reminds me to actually put ‘get Covid shot’ on my list so I don’t forget.

[verushka70]

They haven't started offering the flu vaccine at work yet - it'll be in October, probably; usually is. I haven't had a COVID booster since the second one a few years ago. The first one didn't go well for me, but it was tolerable and the reaction only lasted a few days.

But like Fraser's tongue and electrical sockets, the second booster was not a good mix with my fibromyalgia. It made me sicker and knocked me down worse than actual COVID... and then I got COVID again a few months later anyway (which was not as bad as the COVID vaccine), which I was over in about nine days, though I took the full two weeks my job was allowing us, of course!

I don't discourage people from COVID boosters (I would never do that) but I avoid them myself since that miserable experience. Not enough is really known about the etiology of fibromyalgia anyway, though I did just read a journal article positing HHV4 (EBV) might be related (which could track; I had mono in my late 20s and by 32 I was diagnosed with fibro, though I had been symptomatic for a couple years; it took that long and multiple specialists to get a diagnosis).

I get my yearly flu vaccine free at work - I have since 2007, wherever I worked. I also just got the RSV vaccine this past Friday. And last year I got the shingles and pneumonia vaccines. (Same day, which I should not have done; the shingles vaccine knocked me the hell down, too, luckily only for a few days. But my arm hurt for over a week.) I was planning to get the flu vax as soon as it's offered at work, but now I'll wait until a Friday, like you suggest!