COVID/Flu Shots

GrumpyCanadian · 2025-02-22T07:02:52+00:00

I have been wondering what others have experienced getting the current round of shots. I'm a little late to the party, but am looking to book my appointment(s). The only question is whether to do both at once, or space them out a little. If you got both at once, would you care to share your experiences? Any unpleasant effects?

Somewhat-Reticent

px_eliezer_ Did these studies differentiate between vaccine technologies?
New less-tested-tech vaccines were allowed into production due to CovID emergency.

px_eliezer_

Somewhat-Reticent Did these studies differentiate between vaccine technologies?
New less-tested-tech vaccines were allowed into production due to CovID emergency.

Answer:

Information on index vaccine types was reportedbby 39 out of 42 PVS participants included in the analyses, and they were Comirnaty (Pfizer) (n=14), Spikevax (Moderna) (n=21), and Jcovden (J&J) (n=4).

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.18.25322379v1.full.pdf

As noted, this was a small study and not yet peer-reviewed, but it does provide some early clues to what some patients have been experiencing.

Risks and benefits always have to be viewed together.

Having said that...

ANYONE in medicine knows to be skeptical of statements that amount to "remain calm, all is well".

Everyone used to think that the allergy/asthma medication Singulair (montelukast) had no big downsides, but in recent years it seems to be associated in some people with nightmares or even severe depression, and now carries severe FDA warnings. It took FDA 10 years (from 1998 to 2008) to even start to post more severe warnings, later the warnings were increased. But at first everyone thought there were no big problems.

Everyone used to think that the medicine DES (Diethylstilbestrol) given to pregnant women between 1940 and 1971 was fine. We know now that [daughters] born to women who took it during their pregnancies, face increased cancer risks and fertility problems. My wife is a "DES daughter" it's impacted her life and mine too.
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/risk-prevention/medical-treatments/des-exposure.html

Thalidomide is well known for all the deformed babies born in Europe and Canada. This is one thing that the USA got right, a brave FDA official refused to license it for the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide_scandal

Anyway, though it might not seem so, I am VERY pro-vaccine.

But nothing is perfectly safe, not even close, and as above risk vs benefit must always be considered.

px_eliezer_

ugly95 There's is not a whole lot of reason to be concerned about the findings in that study. While the headlines seem to focus on vaccination, the study did not find any significant results in those with vaccinations who did not also have recent infections. There are only extremely small sample sizes, and there were only 3 patients that reported post vaccination syndrome who were not also recently infected.

It's worth paying attention to, and further research should be done. And people who have problems should not be ignored. But most likely what we are seeing is the same thing we've seen all along. It's the infection that we should be concerned about.

Good points, and of course the overall vaccine usage had far more benefit than harm.

MichelR

px_eliezer_ I was telling the nurse this morning when I went for my COVID shot that the worst part is having to stick around for 15 minutes to see if I have an allergic reaction. 🙂

ugly95

px_eliezer_ As noted, this was a small study and not yet peer-reviewed, but it does provide some early clues to what some patients have been experiencing.

Risks and benefits always have to be viewed together.

For sure. There just seems to be some odd things going on with that study. It's getting a lot of attention in particular circles.

It's a pre-print. But the authors decided to go to press with it. They claim it was important for the public to know. Which, is not untrue. But then they also claim that:

https://www.statnews.com/2025/02/24/post-vaccine-syndrome-yale-study-covid-vaccinations-rare-complication-fuels-critics/

“I just saw people suffering and thought we should follow the science,” said Krumholz, founder of the Yale School of Medicine’s Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation. He stressed he continues to get Covid booster shots, and doesn’t think people should “overindex” what he, Iwasaki, and their co-authors are reporting.

“I don’t think it’s ready to be used in clinical decision-making. So, if anything, I’m just trying to tell people: This shouldn’t be factoring into your decision right now.”

It's definitely bad to hold back on evidence because we know that a particular group is going to jump on it. But, the way they're talking just comes off a bit strange to me. But it seems like they're talking out of both sides of their mouth. Especially, in how they seem to try to coin an entire syndrome off of these results.

There's also some connections to a group React19, who are selling shirts about litigation, and trying to promote litigation. The whole thing comes off a little too close to what happened with Wakefield.

px_eliezer_

ugly95

It is strange, so much else is today as well.

The Yale connection gets attention and (right or wrong) lends credibility.

Dr. Krumholz is a prestigious full professor at Yale, but within Internal Medicine his subspecialty is Cardiology so that's a bit unusual here too. But of course a lot of the issues with Covid-19 relate to the heart, so there is that.

By my age, if going by the current CDC recommendations, I should get a 7th Covid vaccine now.
But after my 6th, I'm pretty sure I had a mild pericarditis for a couple of months, so for me (adapting the title of that old TV show), Six is Enough.

MichelR

px_eliezer_ I see what you did there.

g121

px_eliezer_ By my age, if going by the current CDC recommendations, I should get a 7th Covid vaccine now.
But after my 6th, I'm pretty sure I had a mild pericarditis for a couple of months, so for me (adapting the title of that old TV show), Six is Enough.

I had a bout of pericarditis several years before COVID; severe enough to get my butt into EMERG. In hindsight, I suspect I've had a few other bouts that were much less severe before over my lifetime but just chalked them down to heartburn. I did find it amusing that old time drug Colchicine & Aspirin was the remedy.

Even so, the recommendation was to get the COVID jab but to stick with the Pfizer flavour as its a tad gentler than Moderna.

I've now had 8 Covid jabs (the last being 2024Oct) & I will continue to get a Flu+Covid jab each fall going forward. None have even hinted at triggering a bout of pericarditis.

Hydraglass

px_eliezer_ By my age, if going by the current CDC recommendations, I should get a 7th Covid vaccine now.
But after my 6th, I'm pretty sure I had a mild pericarditis for a couple of months, so for me (adapting the title of that old TV show), Six is Enough.

You would be well served by the Novavax nuvaxovid Covid 19 shots - they seem to be strongly indicated for people who have had pericarditis or other sensitivities to the mRNA based vaccinations. nuvaxovid is much more like a conventional vaccine - it's just broken off pieces of the covid virus - no using mrna or other methods to introduce the spike proteins (which are also obviously abundant in covid itself) into you causing inflammatory or other unwanted responses. My wife had mild pericarditis from her 4th Moderna shot - she has since had 4 Novavax shots with zero issues.

dhn

I've had 10 booster shots ( have an immune deficiency disease) but still got a mild case of Covid at the end of January. Didn't last long (a week or so) and good to go since.

px_eliezer_

Hydraglass

If my wife or I ever take another Covid-19 vaccine at this point, it will be a more traditional vaccine such as the Novavax.

MomOfARocker

GrumpyCanadian I have a mechanical aortiac heart valve as does my son. Our doctor likes us to get everything because of that so we have had both the flu shot and covid vaccines (since those have been available) for the past four years. We get them both done at the same time and neither of us have ever had any issues with doing it that way. I do sometimes get a bit of a red and somewhat warm spot on one arm but I always forget to ask which is going in which arm so not sure which vaccine causes that reaction. Not a big deal though, normally that reaction is gone by the next day. I personally have had 6 covid vaccines in total, 4 Pfizers ad 2 Modernas.

bjlockie

HELLFIRE my last shots was separate doses of flu vax and COMIRNATY KP2 (Pfizer) in the same sitting

Same, no problems.

MichelR

HELLFIRE COMIRNATY KP2

I was looking at which one I got on Monday and saw "COMIRNATY" and was like, "WTF is this?" Took me a minute to remember it was the name of the Pfizer vaccine. Whenever I see Comirnaty, I think Moriarty.

px_eliezer_

MichelR

Vaccines do have brand names...

For example, in Canada there are about 10 approved Flu vaccines, including Fluad, Fluzone, Afluria, and others.

The public just never got used to thinking about the Brand names of Covid vaccines, it was more the manufacturer name (Pfizer–BioNTech, Moderna, and the various others).

It all stems from the unprecedented and chaotic nature of the whole pandemic rollout.

MichelR

px_eliezer_ Everyone I know still calls them Pfizer and Moderna. Might takes a while before the real names take over.

ugly95

px_eliezer_ Vaccines do have brand names...

For example, in Canada there are about 10 approved Flu vaccines, including Fluad, Fluzone, Afluria, and others.

The public just never got used to thinking about the Brand names of Covid vaccines, it was more the manufacturer name (Pfizer–BioNTech, Moderna, and the various others).

It all stems from the unprecedented and chaotic nature of the whole pandemic rollout.

The issue was that they couldn't really market them until they received full approval. So, while under emergency use they had to just use the company name.

A lot of medications tend to have bizarre names for trademark purposes. You want to avoid confusion and you need a name that isn't descriptive. So the marketing team needs to come up with something memorable, that also meets trademark requirements.

It's always kind of strange to me how much thought marketing teams put into the meanings behind company names and logos. Super subtle things that I think most people aren't even aware of. Sometimes all the effort that goes into explaining all those different aspects of the name/logo feels like someone is desperately trying to justify their job.

px_eliezer_

MichelR

Some names will catch on better than others.

Vaxzevria from AstraZeneca was not a great name, in my opinion.

But I'm not Don Draper (Mad Men).

Spikevax is a great name---that's from Moderna.

And the Moderna company name itself combines Modern and RNA.

MORE HERE:
_

Comirnaty, Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine: The name represents a combination of the terms COVID-19, mRNA, community and immunity.

Spikevax, Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine: The first part of the name refers to the “spike” glycoprotein on the coronavirus.

Vaxzevria, AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine: Including the "evri" sound in the name is intended to communicate that the vaccine is for everyone.

Nuvaxovid, Novavax's COVID-19 vaccine: The vaccine's name was designed to share a similar cadence to the drugmaker's name without an explicit association.

Vidprevtyn, Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline's COVID-19 vaccine: The first syllable of the name likely refers to COVID-19, and the second syllable is likely meant to represent disease prevention, according to the report.

Source:
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/digital-marketing/5-covid-19-vaccine-brand-names-explained.html
November 2021 so a bit outdated---and just how many years have we been dealing with this !!!

mozerd

I stopped taking the COVID shots in 2024 cause IMO they are utterly useless … in fact I believe it’s a scam …

MichelR

px_eliezer_ GAAAH. I only knew the first two. Spikevax is the only one that rolls off the tongue.

px_eliezer_

MichelR

Probably the Spikevax name was chosen by one really smart person.

While the others were done by committee. 🙁

Some medical brand names are great---for the antidepressant Zoloft, I can just see Dr. Freud coaxing a depressed patient:
Zo? Loft!

Or the sleep medicine Ambien (AM-Bien that is Morning Good).

By contrast, an awful brand name was Yutopar. Everyone referred to it by the better sounding generic name Ritodrine. (Was used to stop premature labor).

Sparkchaser

px_eliezer_
Probably the Spikevax name was chosen by one really smart person.

While the others were done by committee. 🙁

Reading a Tony Hawks book (not the skateboard guy) and his opinion (in my words) was you have a committee to select the color grey.

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