It took me almost three weeks to recover from the Covid-19 vaccine, I think?

Pins created by my brother, Tyler Winegarner. Buy them at his Etsy shop.

As of April 21, I’m fully vaccinated against Covid-19, meaning I’ve had two doses of the (Pfizer) vaccine and my second dose was on April 7. I had some health issues after each dose that I suspect were long-lasting side effects, and I wanted to share them here because I’ve seen so little written about this. Note that I am not a medical professional; I am just sharing my own experiences. 

I had my first shot on the morning of Wednesday, March 17. I started feeling tired that afternoon and took a nap. I slept pretty well that night, and napped again the following day. On Friday I felt pretty good, and I thought that was the end of it. But over the weekend I had a low appetite, some nausea, and some other GI irritation. Going into the next week (of March 22), I started having cold symptoms: fatigue, sneezing, congestion, sore throat and a mild fever (99.1-ish). Those lasted for a few days and I was feeling pretty okay by the end of the week. 

I got my second shot on April 7. I felt fine that evening and a little tired the next day, but that was all. But then, on Friday April 9, I developed chills and another mild fever (low 99s), which lasted for about 36 hours. On Sunday I felt good, but on Monday (April 12), I developed GI symptoms again that lasted about 48 hours. Another round of cold symptoms followed: lots of fatigue, runny nose, sneezing, sore throat, and some serious brain fog. These continued through the weekend of April 17-18. I’ve felt a bit better each day since then, but some mild fatigue has lingered, and I’ve slept hard every night, which is unusual for me. 

I wouldn’t have thought much of it, except that the pattern of post-vaccine side effects were so similar both times. I wondered if maybe I had a virus, but nobody else in my household had any signs of illness. My instinct tells me that these waves of symptoms were the way my body mounted its immune response to the vaccines. 

I asked on Facebook whether anyone had had prolonged symptoms after their shots, and I got some responses in the affirmative. In particular, some of my friends with fibromyalgia (which I also have) said they had longer reaction times, as though the vaccine had perhaps triggered a fibromyalgia flare. Some of what I experienced felt that way, too, especially the fatigue, malaise and brain fog. Anecdotes are not data, but it seems like an experience worth noting. 

It’s now three-plus weeks since my second shot, and I’m pretty much feeling back to normal. I’m grateful to have this protection from Covid-19, and don’t regret that I got vaccinated. But my experience makes me wonder how many other people had longer recovery times from the vaccine, especially the second one. Dr. Jen Gunter recently noted that our lymph nodes can remain swollen for four to six weeks after the second dose, so clearly our immune systems are still working hard for weeks after these vaccines. 

What about you and your family? Did anyone you know have a longer reaction time to the vaccines?

🎵 (Partially) vaccinated and it feels so good 🎵

I got my first Covid-19 vaccination last Wednesday, the Pfizer version. After a few months of watching my elders and friends in healthcare get their shots, it felt strange for it to suddenly be my turn. I was giddy as I chose the dates for my shots and confirmed the appointments. 

My arm was sore and was really tired for a couple of days after the shot, and I napped a lot. It reminded me a lot of when I get flu shots. Other than that, I felt fine. I expect the next one will have more side effects.

Although I have a number of health conditions (fibromyalgia, thyroid disease, etc.), none of them qualified me for the vaccine. But my weight does. 

That made me feel really conflicted. On the one hand, weight and health are not strictly correlated. I don’t have any of the diseases commonly associated with weight gain. My blood sugar, cholesterol, heart and lungs are all healthy. 

While it’s true that many bigger-bodied people have heart disease or diabetes, it’s more likely that weight gain, heart disease, diabetes (and others) stem from the same causes: chronic stress, especially coupled with traumatic childhood experiences, such as divorce, abuse, loss of a parent, or living under systemic oppression. Nadine Burke Harris, California’s Surgeon General, writes about this in her book The Deepest Well. 

On the other hand, one study shows that people with higher weight/BMI had worse outcomes when they contracted Covid-19. But most of those didn’t just have higher weights; they also had high blood pressure, heart or kidney disease, or another risk factor, so it’s tough to say for sure that weight alone was the issue. 

Also, we don’t know how many of those people might have avoided their doctors early on in their covid infections because they’d been fat-shamed and dismissed in the past, or how many avoided hospitals until they couldn’t anymore, knowing that overwhelmed hospitals may de-prioritize them. 

I don’t know whether I agree that weight alone makes me more vulnerable to covid infection (and there’s also the chance I already had it), but when California said it was my turn to get vaccinated, I was glad to sign up. I’m relieved to be on my way to protection -- not just for myself, but for my family, for the kids in my child’s classroom, and for the employees at the stores I visit. I’m looking forward to it being your turn soon, too.  

Finding unexpected validation in the doctor's office

In mid-July of 2020, during one of the early Covid-19 spikes, I developed a cluster of covid-like symptoms: shortness of breath with any exertion and even with talking, chest pain when I breathed, extreme fatigue, mild fever, muscle aches, and an occasional dry cough. I got a nasal-swab test; it was negative, but at the time, false negative rates were roughly 20-30 percent. I also got a chest X-ray, which showed my lungs were clear. After a couple of weeks, the fever subsided, but the fatigue lasted at least a month and the shortness of breath lingered for months. 

My doctor referred me to a pulmonologist, who was brusque and dismissive of me from the first meeting. She told me that the covid test I’d had -- a gentle swab inside the opening of the nostrils, not the one that goes all the way to your brainpan -- was garbage.

But she also told me that, since I’m fat, it was more likely reflux causing my lung symptoms. And also, because I sometimes have trouble sleeping, I probably also have apnea. (She wasn’t just a pulmonologist, but a sleep doctor). 

I tried explaining to her that I have sensory processing disorder, and I wake up at the slightest unusual noise or movement at night, and that’s why I don’t sleep well. “It’s possible that you have … whatever that is,” she said disdainfully, “But apnea is very common in people of your size.” Never mind that we were on a video call and she could only see me from the shoulders up, and had no idea what size my body was.

Unfortunately, I’m accustomed to having interactions like this with doctors. I’m fat, I have fibromyalgia, I’m neurodiverse and I’m well educated on my own health. I do a lot of self-advocacy in the doctor’s office, and some doctors don’t like it. They also don’t always know how to handle it when someone turns up in their office with so many unfamiliar conditions (even though none of them are particularly rare). 

I stopped seeing that pulmonologist. My GP put me on a steroid inhaler, which was the first thing to really bring my lungs any relief. After a month of breathing freely, I met with a different pulmonologist, who took my history again. He said right away that my symptoms strongly suggested I’d had a virus that affected my lungs, and that covid was entirely possible. He also said that lasting shortness of breath was common after these kinds of viruses, and that sometimes a miscommunication between the nerves in the throat and the nerves in the chest/lungs can be part of the problem. 

I laughed. “No, it really can happen,” he said.

“I believe you,” I said. “I have fibromyalgia -- my nerves misfire pretty often.”

He didn’t question it. At all. 

He referred me to UCSF’s voice and swallowing center, where they would check for any signs of a nerve issue. On the day of my visit, the speech-language pathologist talked me through my history. Again, she mentioned the potential for nerve systems misfiring. When I mentioned I have fibromyalgia, she nodded knowingly. “It’s really common for folks with fibromyalgia to have these kinds of issues. We see it all the time.”

My body warmed with relief. It’s rare enough to find healthcare workers willing to take fibromyalgia seriously, let alone ones who are familiar with treating patients like me. 

“We also find that this happens in patients who have a lot of sensory sensitivities,” she said. 

“That’s me, too!” I said. Of course, I’m not at all surprised -- people with sensory sensitivities are more likely to develop chronic pain conditions, and vice versa. But not that many people in health care seem to be aware of that. 

I thanked her for being familiar with these things, and she smiled. And then, when it came time to numb my sinuses and run a scope through my nose and down into my throat, she did two things that really helped: One, she explained everything she was about to do. And two, she got the tiniest scope possible, the one they use for infants, so it would cause me the least discomfort. 

I’ve written before about having to craft my own healthcare procedures. It’s exhausting, and shouldn’t be necessary, but it’s also worth it. So it was a huge surprise and relief to be taken care of -- without having to do any of the work myself. Why can’t more medical appointments be this way?

I still don’t know if I had Covid-19. My lungs feel a lot better, and the voice and swallowing center didn’t find anything wrong with the nerves in my throat. And I’m grateful that, at that appointment, I felt genuinely seen.