Aa
Aa
A
A
A
Close
446049 tn?1649005835

Has anyone who received the Moderna vaccine had a bad reaction to their second dose?

I had the first dose and no side effects at all, but I'm going soon for the second dose
in a couple of weeks and have read elsewhere that the Moderna vaccine has the most
side effects after the second dose, especially with underlying conditions.
9 Responses
Sort by: Helpful Oldest Newest
Avatar universal
I'm fully vaccinated and both of my shots were Merderma. Other than my arm being very sore and a slight runny nose, everything was good. I think you'll be fine!
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
I had absolutely nothing. 2 weeks so far. First dose only Covid arm
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
Though this has been answered - for what it's worth.... No reaction on the first dose, but 24hrs of being sick (like a bad flu) for the second dose.  12 hours after receiving it I woke up feeling sick (3AM headache, elevated temp., restless, and was unable to go back to sleep).  The day went on just like a bad flu would, at about the 18hr mark I broke and took some ibuprofen, put a cold wash cloth on my head and managed to fall asleep.  6 hours later in the middle of the night (3AM) I woke up from breaking my very mild fever (a bit sweaty), and from then on felt absolutely great (like a new person). It was worth every minute of discomfort and I would do it again.  
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
I have lupus and I had the moderna. The first shot I had no symptoms but the shot paralyzed me   I was stuck in a chair for the second shot. It was on the second day and every bone in my body hurt and I couldn’t walk. The next day I felt fine. No soreness from either injection.
Helpful - 0
2 Comments
So just to continue my own reporting here, my wife had here 2d Moderna shot yesterday and feels like she has the flu and her arm hurts.  Haven't actually seen her since the shot yesterday morning, as she has been sleeping ever since.  Kind of similar to her first shot.  Whereas I just got a sore arm and nothing else, really, but it kind of mirrors how we respond to colds and flu, where she gets a lot sicker than I do, but I have a whole lot of chronic pain and she doesn't.  I guess everything gets us where we're weak and probably explains the wildly different reactions folks are having.  She's still ecstatic, though, because now she can see her friends and family again whenever she wants.
It's such a relief to get it.

I got Moderna, and I was knocked out by side effects, with both doses, and the second was a lot worse. I got both shots on a Thursday, and both weekends were just me sleeping, but that's fine, but I got vaccinated. :)
Avatar universal
I had the 2nd dose 3 days ago and I felt like I had been hit by a train.  Body aches, especially the arm the injection was in.  It felt dead and was in so much pain.  
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
My husband and I had bad responses to the first Moderna injection including but not limited to, chills, fever, headaches.  He experienced flashbacks to wartime experiences (70's) and says last time he was this sick was when he received swine flu injection from the army in early 70's.  He did have virus approximately 60 days prior to getting the injection and is 70 years old.  I also had the chills and flu like symptoms.  He elected not to take the the second dose, however I did take mine 4 weeks later, and experience the same symptoms for approximately 5 days, with extreme chills, body aches, severe headaches and some delusions, but I attribute these to the high fever.  I am 69 and do have underlying illnesses to include HBP, migraines, kidney disease, thyroid disease, hormone difficeincy, epstein barr but most are controlled by medication.
Helpful - 0
4 Comments
That's interesting, especially because you aren't related to each other by blood and both had bad reactions. In my family, me and my sisters all reacted almost identically. But my husband reacted quite differently to Moderna than I did.
I would urge your husband to finish the course, but the flashbacks, that's pretty intense so I get it.  My wife and I had very different reactions, so it does seem it just affects people differently.  I had a pretty sore arm the first shot for 3 days and then it disappeared, but oddly, a couple weeks later that arm started hurting and hasn't stopped since.  Have no idea if the two are related.  The second shot only hurt my arm for a day.  The first shot gave me no other side effects at all.  The 2d shot was weird, but that morning was already weird, as I was very anxious that day unrelated to getting the shot.  When I got the shot, it was as if I'd been injected with adrenaline, but again, it could just have been that I was having a weird morning.  But that was it for me.  Neither shot affected me in a way that changed anything I did.  My wife, on the other hand, didn't get a lot of arm soreness, and it didn't start for her until the next day, but she was really tired and didn't do much that day but sleep,   Upon reflection I think my very unhealthy schedule, if you can call it that, that I have fallen into from years of problems may have helped me, because I sleep during the day.  So within a couple of hours of getting the injection both times I went to bed.  I don't sleep very well, and wake up frequently which is how I ended up this way, but it wasn't any different.  When I awoke both times I went ahead with my normal, or abnormal, exercise and physical therapy stuff, which takes forever and is pretty much all that's left of my life.  So maybe just going to bed after some PT actually helped me.  Imagine that!
If a person suffers flashbacks, you don't "get it" unless you suffer them as well. They are hell.
I was referring to the intensity, not to the specifics.  As bad as flashbacks are, dying or suffering long-term harm from blood clots due to covid is a lot worse.  I'm a big avoider, because I have an anxiety disorder made untreatable by a bad reaction to medication.  We all have our burdens others can't necessarily put themselves into, but we also all have health problems that have to be either dealt with or suffered.  My advice is, finish since he started, but he gets to decide.  My wife's Dad won't get the vaccine because he had a terrible reaction to a vaccine when he was in the military.  He's in his 80's, and his wife just died, and I think he needs to get vaccinated so his family and friends can visit him without the fear of killing him or him killing someone else.  When things don't just affect us, it gets harder.  But again, he does get to decide, but he will also have to live with those consequences too.  Maybe a different vaccine will be different.  If he's willing to wait, the most effective vaccine of all of them in clinical trials is the one from Novavaxx, which isn't approved yet and even when it is there's no guarantee the US will offer any of it to Americans, as we already have enough to go around, but if it is approved soon as expected and is made available here, and again, it probably will be sent to other countries, but if it is, maybe that's an option as it uses very different technology than Moderna or Pfizer and works a lot better at least in trials than J&J or AstraZeneca or, for that matter, any of the others.  Peace.
446049 tn?1649005835
Well, I got the 2nd Moderna vaccine and just a bit sore at the injection site
for a couple of days. This was last week. I'm almost 70, so I do believe that
age has something to do with it as well as your immune system. I did take
extra vitamin D and C so that might have helped. Thank you all!
Helpful - 0
1 Comments
I'm so glad you got it!  Sounds like it went pretty well and yay! Less covid worry is a good thing!!
1415174 tn?1453243103
Hi, it varies from person to person depending on the immune system. Age can also be a factor. If you are over 60 years old there are less reactions to the vaccine, but that doesn't mean you are not immune. For example, my husband is 65 and he got the first shot and had no symptoms at all or maybe slightly tired. The second shot he was fine the first day and the second day he got some muscle aches and chills at night. That was it.  I am 58 and I got the first shot and had very sore arm, fatigue for 3 days, and the second shot the first night I got sore arm and at night got fatigue, chills and muscle aches. The next day I had a 101 fever, splitting headache, chills, muscle aches. I took a Tylenol, after the more strong side effects came on because it is best to wait until your immune system kicks in. After that I felt a lot better and the next day I only had fatigue and no fever and felt better. Day 4 I was close to normal.
My friend who is 67 also got no effects with the first shot. Second shot she felt a little tired and slight sore arm that is it. But all of us still have same immunity against the SARSCovid2 (Covid19) virus 2 weeks after the second shot.  My husband works at a biotech and he had his antibodies tested and he was very positive for IgG antibodies at 2 weeks after the second shot. The IgM was negative (as it should be because it drops after  3-4 weeks) . They tested a person who had the disease and he was less positive than with my husband who had the vaccine. But they say not to test for antibodies because not all tests available on the market will pick the antibodies up and people will think they are not immune. So you have to trust in the data.  

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/expect/after.html
https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/the-moderna-covid-19-mrna-1273-vaccine-what-you-need-to-know

Also, when they say 92% efficacy with the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine it is really higher because they included people that were not fully immune that got exposure. So it really is high. This is just an example. I am not selecting any particular vaccine out. That is a different question.
mkh9
Helpful - 0
1 Comments
I believe the Moderna and BioNTech vaccines had 94.5% effectiveness, didn't they?  My experience so far is just the first Moderna shot.  I expected to feel nothing because I've never felt anything from any vaccine before but I did have 3 days of pain in the arm that surprised me.  But nothing else.  Get my 2d shot in a couple weeks, so we'll see.  But when I mentioned to an old friend who is very sick with recurrent pancreatitis and maybe dying from it, we'll see, he has a lot more of a social life than I do and his experience with the many people he knows is, both the BioNTech and Moderna vaccine can be hard the 2d shot and both can be really easy, so there's just no way to predict anyone's reaction.  He had no bad reactions at all to either Moderna shot, but his sister had a  bit of a bad time with the 2d BioNTech shot.  In his experience, more people are having a problem with the BioNTech, so again, who knows?  As for vaccine VS having had covid, every expert I've seen interviewed has said the vaccine is far more effective than having had covid, and lasts a lot longer, though nobody knows how long yet.  Unfortunately, if we don't vaccinate everyone in the world quickly, variants can arise that the vaccines don't protect us against, and right now, only the wealthy countries have vaccine.  The US has bought so much it will take 2 years for poor countries to get vaccinated, so don't unbuckle those seat belts or throw away the masks any time soon.  Peace.
207091 tn?1337709493
It does have more side effects, but this is something that really varies from person to person. Whether or not your underlying conditions would affect it depends on the underlying condition.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/Moderna.html

"Among people who participated in the clinical trials, 22.3% had at least one high-risk condition, which included lung disease, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, liver disease, or HIV infection. Four percent (4%) of participants had two or more high-risk conditions."

So people with underlying conditions were decently represented, but more than 22% reported side effects, so it's not just that. It could be age, gender, having had covid before, or any number of other things.

Is there something in particular you're worried about?
Helpful - 0
2 Comments
I am a 71 year old semi - retired physician.
I had my first dose of the Moderna vaccine in December with no problems my second shot I developed headaches ,fever and chills for about 30 hours symptoms resolved with Tylenol.
I have a history of anaphylaxis and  on day six I started having swelling of my lips, took EPIPEN and Benadryl it resolved after 4 hours.
I am very hesitant if they have a booster to take the Moderna vaccine .
What should I do .
Given time will have passed, it's very possible you can take a different vaccine if we end up needing more shots, which seems inevitable.  The Novavaxx vaccine has had very good results in trials, and maybe it will by then be available in the US.  It shows nearly as effective as the Moderna.  Or you could try the BioNTech (Pfizer), which is very similar to the Moderna and you might not have the same problems.  A lot of times it's not the vaccine, it's the additives.  
Have an Answer?

You are reading content posted in the COVID19 Community

Didn't find the answer you were looking for?
Ask a question
Popular Resources
Learn more with our FAQ on Ebola.
A list of national and international resources and hotlines to help connect you to needed health and medical services.
Herpes sores blister, then burst, scab and heal.
Herpes spreads by oral, vaginal and anal sex.
STIs are the most common cause of genital sores.
Condoms are the most effective way to prevent HIV and STDs.