I had my first jab on the 11th of March 2021.
I have to confess that I'm not a fan of annual vaccinations for Flu, and so I was just a bit nervous about getting the Covid jab.
I probably need to clarify that I am not Anti-vaccination in any way. However, I do have a history of adverse reactions to some vaccines. Years ago I worked at London City Airport, on both the land and airside, and in areas where international passengers would be or would have been. This necessitated me having a course of both Tetanus and Hepatitis jabs.
I had no problem with the jabs in principle, and in truth, I'd had so many Tetanus jabs as a kid I probably didn't need the Tetanus jab. But what the hey it was free? I had the jabs.
I was floored for a day and bit. I suspect based on previous experience with tetanus, that the issues arose from the Hepatitis jab, but there is no way of knowing. Three jabs over the course of a few weeks and three incidents of feeling as `Fluy' as you can without having the Flu, even with a Piroton chaser, as administered by the Airports in-house GP.
Many years later, I qualified for a free annual Flu jab, my previous experience with the Hepatitis jab was long-forgotten. This was probably a good thing as I went for the Flu jab with no qualms whatsoever. However, the reaction to the Flu jab was 80% of the way to waking up with Flu (if you have actually had Flu you will know what this is like, it's not the sniffles, it's not a cold or a chill. Flu can be a killer and a proper dose of Flu will leave you in doubt whatsoever of it's potential for being lethal). I digress. The effects lasted at least five days and waned a bit each day. However, within a twenty-four hour period, I had gone from being as chipper as a chipper thing with extra chips to being laid out, off sick from work.
The following year I "swerved" the vaccination (that's a colloquial term for ducked my responsibility). The following year, my annual asthma review happened to coincide with the start of the Flu jab season and there was no escape. The nurse practitioner I was seeing just said `well while you're here you may as well have your Flu jab (or words to that effect). The next day I remember going into town for work and bailing out, and coming home mid-morning.
This seasonal Flu jab reaction is my standard. I'm old enough and wise enough now to know, that I need to book the jab for a Friday, ideally in the afternoon, because without a doubt there is going to be some unpleasantness involved. This said the 2020 Flu jab is probably the least bad I've ever had. My arm felt like it was hanging off for a week, but other than that I was fine, 2019 on the other hand was a typical reaction, freezing cold shivering aching hateful affair.
So back to the Covid Jab and my trepidation.
Noting of any significance to report. If I swing my left arm back to its full extent I can feel the ache in the injection site. No chills, no headache, nothing. Have the jab, and let's get back to as normal as we can and hope that resurgent variants don't undo the fantastic work of scientists, the NHS (all of it), and all the thousands of volunteers making this process best in class.
Advising-individuals-with-allergies-on-their-suitability-for-astrazeneca-covid-19-vaccine
