No side effects from your COVID vaccine? Don’t worry, it still works | Health info

By Robert Preidt, health day reporter

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 19, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Even if you don’t have side effects from your COVID-19 vaccine, it likely continues to protect you, according to a reassuring new report.

Many people who receive the COVID mRNA vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna are experiencing body aches and fatigue that indicate the vaccine is triggering their immune systems to recognize and fight the coronavirus.

But what if you feel fine and don’t have such symptoms?

In the new study, researchers examined 206 hospital workers at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for coronavirus antibodies before and after receiving the two-dose Pfizer vaccine.

Employees received their vaccines between December 2020 and January 2021, were followed up until March 2021, and performed lab work in April and May.

Similar to clinical trials, the most frequently reported symptom among study participants was arm pain, with rates of 91% after the first shot and 82% after the second.

After their first hit, 42% of participants reported feeling tired or weak, and 28% reported aches and pains. After their second injection, 62% reported feeling weak or tired, and 52% reported aches and pains, according to the results.

Being female, younger and having a lower weight were associated with an increase in vaccine side effects.

However, researchers at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) found no link between the presence or severity of side effects and a person’s immune system antibody level one month after vaccination. , according to the study published in the January issue of the journal Open Forum on Infectious Diseases.

The researchers explained that mRNA vaccines teach cells in the body how to make a protein or a piece of protein that triggers an immune response inside the body.

“Our results suggest that people receiving these vaccines can be reassured that the absence of post-vaccination symptoms does not mean that the vaccine is not working as expected,” said study author Si’ Ana Coggins, a scientist in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at USU. a university press release.

“These results also suggest that it may be possible to design future mRNA vaccines that deliver robust antibody responses with fewer vaccine-related symptoms,” Coggins added.

Researchers are now investigating whether there is a link between vaccine side effects and longer-term antibody responses.

SOURCE: Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, press release, January 14, 2022

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