It’s been nearly two weeks since my wife and I were back in Bowie, Maryland, for our second shot of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. It was a sunny and warm afternoon after a windy, cold, and wet month. We hoped that was a good omen.
Nina, the same pharmacist who gave us our first shots exactly four weeks earlier, was there again, and our jabs went smoothly. Laura and I both had sore arms for a day after the first shot, but nothing else. But we’d heard stories of people having to spend a day or two in bed after the second. But we wondered if we’d suffer the same side effects.
Nina warned us that she had “every side effect possible,” including fatigue, fever, chills, and body aches, following her COVID shot #2. Was that what lay ahead for us, too.
What about interactions with disease-modifying therapies?
I was particularly concerned about whether my MS and the disease-modifying treatment I’ve used would have an impact. My neurologist told me there are no contraindications to the COVID-19 vaccine for people with MS, and the most recent guidance from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society says the vaccines “are not likely to trigger an MS relapse or to worsen your chronic MS symptoms.”
The Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers (CMSC) adds that, “Most DMTs are not expected to affect the responses to the Pfizer BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, though some … may make the vaccines less effective.” But the CMSC suggests that people with MS should coordinate the timing of some DMT treatments with the administration of COVID-19 vaccines. That’s not an issue with me since my final Lemtrada (alemtuzumab) treatment was nearly four years ago.
What about those COVID shot #2 side effects?
Guess what? I had no arm pain or stiffness. At bedtime, I was a little more tired than usual, but we had spent the day loading the car for an upcoming trip to Florida. We also had to unexpectedly take Freddie, our cat, to the vet. I don’t know if it was those tasks or COVID shot #2 that led to my fatigue.
I woke up around 2 a.m. and then again around 4 a.m. feeling a little achy, and I didn’t think I could get out of bed and walk to the bathroom if I had needed to. Luckily, I didn’t, and by the time I did need to get up I was feeling OK. At about 3:30 the next afternoon, I felt a little spacey for a couple of hours. But that’s it.
Laura’s only apparent vaccine reaction was a headache. Two days later her headache was gone.
Guess where we are?
We’re now in Florida, on a trip that we had initially planned for last November. We’ve finally slept in the condo we bought a year ago. We feel much more comfortable being around people, but we’re still keeping our distance, wearing masks, washing our hands, and not meeting people indoors, for their sake and our own.
And Freddie is fine. He’s now in Florida, too, and he’s loving it.
(A version of this post first appeared as my column on the MS News Today website.)
(Featured image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay.)
