2nd Pfizer shot put me through the wringer yesterday, like a really bad case of the flu minus throwing up. Almost totally better today.
Here’s what I would recommend to anyone who still needs to get theirs, based on my experience and what happened to people I know:
Do everything you can to get the day following your shot free from responsibilities.
Before you get the shot, get/make a couple days worth of healthy food that you like eating. Have a small treat or two around for comfort food too. Most likely you’ll just be out of commission for a day if you do get side-effects, but better to take it easy on yourself. If the food needs any preparation at all, do as much as possible in advance. If you feel sick, you’re not going to want to do it. The more you can do ahead, the better you will eat, and the food will act as fuel to help your body fight. Don’t get things you don’t really like because it’s hard enough to force yourself to eat shit you don’t want normally, let alone when you’re sick.
Get movies, books, whatever stuff you can enjoy to pass the time in bed. Make sure you have any chargers etc ... the last thing you’ll want to do if you feel sick is go looking for them. You may end up using few to none of these things but better to have them should you not end up feeling so bad, yet still need to rest. Keep extra clothes by your bed too in case you alternate between feeling hot and cold.
If possible, get a late afternoon appointment. Mine was at 4pm. The side-effects started kicking in about 4 hours later; when they did, I went to bed early.
Drink a lot of water (don’t chug it all at once, just keep drinking consistently) before and after your appointment, but stop about an hour/1.5 hours before you anticipate going to bed based on what I said above so you won’t be waking up to go to the bathroom.
Take your temperature before you go to bed if you have a thermometer.
Do everything you can so nothing will wake you up the next morning and you can sleep as long as your body needs to. Keep phone on silent, take care of everything needed for the next day in advance, use a fan as a noise machine if you anticipate a racket. Ideally you will sleep as long as possible, to miss as much as you can of potentially feeling sick.
When you do wake up for the next day, take your temperature if you have a thermometer. Drink water and eat well consistently throughout the day even if you don’t feel like it. It will help your system fight and circulate everything it needs to. I personally wanted to let my body do its thing so I didn’t take any medicine until 24 hours after I got the shot, when my fever kept climbing; after I took Advil, many of the symptoms including fever quickly went away and haven’t come back.
Know it’s not going to last. If you ever had a bad hangover or the flu, you can do this. It just feels weird because something that’s going to help you is initially making you feel like crap.
Try to find something laughable if you can. I had really sore joints, especially my middle fingers. Clearly my body wants COVID to go fuck itself. Or just tell yourself, “Looks like Leia forgot” ...
http://xkcd.com/2425/This was long but hope it helps someone. Good luck everybody
Topic: Covid vaccine (Read 58705 times)