COVID-19 vaccines: medical concerns and recommendations

[Spartan1980]

Just wanted to follow on to this, and actually add something to the forum I have experience with.

Quick notes on tinnitus:

Creds: I have progressive tinnitus in both ears, due to otosclerosis, where the stapes bone in my middle ear has over calcified as a result of exposure to loud sounds. It usually occurs later in life and is usually genetic. I was diagnosed in my 30s, and assumed it was from head trauma/a youth filled with loud music and occasionally, industrial machinery. I ended up having one ear operated on, was going to do the second when COVID hit, so that has been delayed. I have a very good and well-regarded expert here in NYC who was quite confident that it was due to just an incident or two of gunfire in an enclosed space sans ear pro.

Anyway, even after the surgery (which transformed my "bad" ear into my "good" ear, while the new "bad" has progressively gotten worse, my doc informed me that there are a multitude of factors that contribute to the subjective experience of tinnitus. Even minute changes in blood pressure, atmospheric conditions, pitch/volume of ambient noise (ranging from silence to certain voices), allergies/congestion, etc. The blood pressure is a big part; even if you are not clinically hypertensive, stimulants, sodium intake, hydration levels, physical activity, and any kind of mental/physical stress can cause a change in tinnitus. He mentioned that I should expect to hear it surge during weightlifting (I do) and shared that some patients give up caffeine in order to lessen it (to which I said, just shoot me instead).

All of this to say, I had wondered if it had been made worse by my Moderna vax, but concluded in the end that it was more or at least just as likely stress/caffeine. No way to make a certain conclusion with an N = 1 and no control group, and certainly no blind on a very subjective phenomenon.

@Joe S that sounds spot on. (No pun intended...)


I am subject to several of those factors and it makes perfect sense to me...hence my hesitance to put Moderna in the crosshairs.

Great post.

I had a nasty case of tinnitus in both ears before receiving the Moderna. Same background as @Joe S. Unprotected gunfire, years of industrial machining, concerts, race cars, motorcycles. Hell it's a wonder I can hear anything at all and some family says I can't. I do think maybe it got slightly worse post vax but it was already so bad it's hard to tell. Could it have been some of the other symptomatic reactions to the vax? Possibly and it does seem to have diminished to baseline, but again it's just hard to tell and my reactions were a non-issue for all intents. My main tinnitus trigger seems to be nasal/sinus congestion. It's been messing with my inner ears for several years now where it never did before.

So should I stick with Moderna or go J&J for my upcoming shot? Looking at a month or two before getting a "booster" whether its a legit booster or just another dose of the old. Shot #2 of Moderna was end of March.

[4RNR]

It's been 9 days since receiving the vaccine and the headaches continue. Nothing has changed in intensity, all are varying degrees of mild maybe a touch into the moderate occasionally. Come and go throughout the day. Nights are fine. Mornings are usually fine. In the evening at one point they/it will suddenly stop and will be like it never happened. Only one day in the middle of that week has been headache free.

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About 11 days in and headaches persist although A LOT less frequent and very very mild

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[Hot Sauce]

So should I stick with Moderna or go J&J for my upcoming shot? Looking at a month or two before getting a "booster" whether its a legit booster or just another dose of the old. Shot #2 of Moderna was end of March.

Our typical medical professionals should chime in, but until there's a wide study showing the effectiveness of the 2 Moderna/1 J&J booster, it's an unknown. Probably unlikely to harm you, but unclear if it'd give a better result. The only mixing study I've heard of was AstraZeneca first shot and then mRNA second shot.

If I were in your place, I'd stick to the same Moderna one for a booster unless explicitly recommended to do otherwise by medical professionals with vax-relevant expertise.

[pangloss]

So should I stick with Moderna or go J&J for my upcoming shot? Looking at a month or two before getting a "booster" whether its a legit booster or just another dose of the old. Shot #2 of Moderna was end of March.

Our typical medical professionals should chime in, but until there's a wide study showing the effectiveness of the 2 Moderna/1 J&J booster, it's an unknown. Probably unlikely to harm you, but unclear if it'd give a better result. The only mixing study I've heard of was AstraZeneca first shot and then mRNA second shot.

If I were in your place, I'd stick to the same Moderna one for a booster unless explicitly recommended to do otherwise by medical professionals with vax-relevant expertise.

Barring data to the contrary, you should stick with the Moderna. However, it appears as though the White House didn't realize the role of the FDA in approving a third dose, so the timeline for having to make this decision is probably going to be more drawn out than expected. I really don't think which vaccine you're boosted with will make much difference in terms of outcome, but I have zero data to support that opinion. Barring some immunodeficiency/immunosuppression, your chances of dying from COVID fell of a cliff after your second dose of vaccine.

[Clusterfrack]

Pfizer 3rd dose appears to act as a good ‘booster’ against delta. See p.25 and following in the Pfizer press release:
https://s21.q4cdn.com/317678438/file...arts-FINAL.pdf

My SME source says Moderna is so effective after 2 doses that a 3rd may not be needed, but is still advisable. Apparently variant specific boosters are not coming anytime soon.

As well, new data show that breakthrough cases in vaccinated individuals are unlikely to be contagious because most of the virus that shows up in PCR is dead.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1....20.21262158v1

[peterb]

It’s seasonal flu vaccine time again, which will probably add to the confusion….

————

Can I get the flu and COVID-19 vaccines at the same time?

Absolutely. The CDC had previously recommended spacing out the timing of the COVID-19 vaccine and other immunizations because the vaccines were so new, but "that guidance has changed," says Grohskopf. The CDC now says it's safe to get both vaccines at once, she says. "The body's immune response and side effects are generally the same as when getting one vaccine alone." If you do get two shots on the same day, expect to get each vaccine in a different arm, which may reduce any pain and swelling that might occur.


https://www.npr.org/sections/health-...-covid-booster

[peterb]

Small studies, but some evidence that vaccine after having Covid-19 greatly enhances immune response.
———————
So who is capable of mounting this "superhuman" or "hybrid" immune response?

People who have had a "hybrid" exposure to the virus. Specifically, they were infected with COVID-19 in 2020 and then immunized with mRNA vaccines this year. "Those people have amazing responses to the vaccine," says virologist Theodora Hatziioannou at the Rockefeller University, who also helped to lead several of the studies. "I think they are in the best position to fight the virus. The antibodies in these people's blood can even neutralize SARS-CoV-1, the first coronavirus, which emerged 20 years ago. That virus is very, very different from SARS-CoV-2."

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsan...me-individuals

[GmanVP9]

You know what I hate about all of this? The misinformation. You hear stuff like COVID vax may cause ADE, you hear stuff like Ivermectin works, then you hear it doesn't. Whats true and whats b/s?

[YVK]

As well, new data show that breakthrough cases in vaccinated individuals are unlikely to be contagious because most of the virus that shows up in PCR is dead.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1....20.21262158v1

That's not how I understood the results. Viral culture (a proxy for infectivity) was positive in 68% of breakthrough cases vs 85% of unvaccinated.

[Clusterfrack]

That's not how I understood the results. Viral culture (a proxy for infectivity) was positive in 68% of breakthrough cases vs 85% of unvaccinated.

However in breakthroughs, a very high viral load is needed to yield the same quantity of infectious virus compared to the viral load for an unvaccinated case.