I remember it being discussed when the vaccines were first introduced last December, but I believe it was debunked fairly quickly. I was told to take medication if needed when I got my shots in December/January.Originally Posted by Ed L
I remember it being discussed when the vaccines were first introduced last December, but I believe it was debunked fairly quickly. I was told to take medication if needed when I got my shots in December/January.
TBH I have no idea what primary lit on that looks like. I say get the booster, it definitely won't hurt.
Tylenol's mechanism of action is such that I'd bet my life that it has absolutely no effect on immunological response to vaccination
There is some animal data showing reduced responses to vaccines in animals following ibuprofen (I think) administration around the time of and following vaccination. A colleague sent a copy of an article to me and a clinical immunologist with whom we collaborate. The clinical immunologist thought the article had zero relevance to human health, and I'm strongly inclined to agree. I don't remember what the dosages were or how they related to humans, but the report seemed pretty artificial relative to the human world outside an animal facility. The day after I got my second dose of vaccine, I took a couple of Advil. I don't think it hurt my response. When I get my boost, if I feel lousy, I'll take another couple of advil. If I don't feel like I need the drugs, I won't take them.
I don't have nearly as good a data set for looking at antibodies in people who recover from infection. We had small number of repeat donors in the convalescent plasma study, and their antibody levels were definitely dropping. I didn't know the clinical history of some samples at the time we ran them. I had one that was just above the cutoff value for my assay. I called it as "positive" but with the caveat that I should probably have an "equivocal" result for the assay. Turns out the sample was from a person who'd had diagnosed infection last summer. Based on these observations, I'd say the decay rates are roughly the same. The basis for this number involves a lot of cellular immunology, so the kinetics are more complex than just the half life of antibody in blood. Unfortunately, it looks like B cells don't transition to the kind of cells that stick around for a long time and make a lot of antibody (long-lived plasma cells) after infection or vaccination.
The mRNA vaccine encodes the spike protein from the virus. After vaccination, your cells make that one part of the virus. Your immune system recognizes that protein as being something foreign and carries out an immune response against it. Vaccines definitely have a dose effect, and you can increase the dose to a certain point. However, if you start putting too much stuff in the vaccine, it'll become more "reactogenic" which discourages people from getting vaccinated. The small pox vaccine is a good example. With it you get live cow pox virus and a nasty sore on your arm, which can be very unpleasant (especially if you get it in your right arm and you like to sleep on your right side). My thinking is that these mRNA vaccines will get us through the intermediate term, but for the longer term, we'll need a more conventional vaccine with a better adjuvant. Adjuvants are components of vaccines that aren't part of what your trying to protect against but function to increase the immune response to the vaccine. Having said that, maintaining vaccine-mediated protection indefinitely is probably not realistic. We can't do it for flu. We can't do it for RSV. I'll be very surprised if we manage it for SARS-CoV-2. Get the vaccine. Get the boost. Get the virus. Get well.
We've run some samples from a small handful of breakthrough cases now, and these people have very high antibody levels. The titer in one sample was >8x higher than the previous record high titer I'd recorded for that assay. I'm speculating now, but if vaccination protects for ~6 months, I wouldn't be surprised if breakthrough infection protects for two years.
As another data point: the pharmacist who gave my mother her booster today did not give such an advisory (he did advise against getting another vaccine for 4 weeks, delaying her planned shingles vaccine).
She is at hour 10 with no side effects (and had no significant side effects for #1 or #2)
Considering quite favorable clinical outcomes of breakthrough cases in otherwise healthy individuals, this brings up an obvious question...
Doesn't read posts longer than two paragraphs.
I think the boosts are still a good idea until a higher percentage of the population has some sort of immunity. Case counts here are still crushing the health care system. A few minutes ago, I read a news report that said my small state has 2,000 fewer nurses than when the pandemic started. Sometimes the limitation is not physical beds, but staffing. Yesterday was a record high for COVID-19 deaths in the state. If getting a boost lowers the possibility of me infecting an unvaccinated person, like my kids, I'll do it. Three years from now, I won't care because everyone will have have been infected. For the record, I'm predicting Thursday, Feb 1, 2024 as Universal Infection Day, the day by which everyone on earth will have been infected. I think I'll plan a party for Feb 3, 2024...
I also think I should go to sleep now.
Took the first shot on Tuesday with the Wife.
She is not feeling good .. arm pain ..chills .. very tired.
I am sure she will be fine by Thursday or Friday. Wife is 58 years old.
I took Tuesday off from working out on the advice from the guy who stuck me
My arm hurt last night and today ..feel tired but went and lifted weights.
I am an old Man 69 years old , past my prime
My Bench workout 24 hours after the first Dose.
135 X 10
200 X 5
230 X 3
260 X 2
290 X 1
290 X 1
290 X 1
295 X 1
Seated Front press
205 x 1 (4 Times )
I want to thank this Forum for being the main reason why I took the plunge.
Thanks to all the medical people on here !!!!!
Thanks to all the deep thinkers and all who posted Pro & Con on the COVID-19 vaccines:
If the index vaccination ended up affecting primarily clinical disease but doesn't affect asymptomatic and community transmission as much, as we are told in light of delta surge all day every day now, why would we expect the same booster to decrease the transmission to unvaccinated?
I know it is unfair for me to ask you this in light of all uncertainty, and I hope you got a good night's rest.
My personal interpretation of what has happened so far (and I am really just one step above an amateur in immunity and virology) is that the vaccination indeed reduced both community spread and clinical disease - when the vaccine was tailored against the predominant variant. I understand that by boosting now we will get an additional humoral response which will cross react against the delta to some extent. To me it would be akin to getting a flu vaccine made on the basis of viruses predominant a year before. Maybe this is the best we can do but I wish we could do better.
Doesn't read posts longer than two paragraphs.
As I understand the booster from Pfizer is tailored against the delta variant though, correct?
This one:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/pfi...er-2021-08-25/
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