Received my booster shot for the #Moderna #vaccine Stage 3 clinical trial. Experienced mild fever after the 1st shot, but full-on #COVID-like symptoms for 12hrs after the 2nd shot. Fever, chills, muscle and joint aches, really hot hands and feet, headache, general malaise, cough.

Obviously it's not a live vaccine so it's not COVID, just a comparable immune response. Didn't sleep all night, had to ice my forehead all night long. SpO2 dropped from 98%->82%; heart rate increased 80->90+ over 4 hours; temp was over 38 deg C for 5 hours.

After a very rough night, I am back to normal.

I'm obviously an isolated case, but since all indications point to this vaccine being approved, I feel like people should know that the side effects may be severe, especially after the second shot.

I tested my antibodies using Quest serology, a month after the 1st shot. The results came back negative, which was surprising, since I had mild symptoms after the 1st shot (mild fever mostly), so I was sure I didn't get the placebo. Maybe Quest is looking at different antibodies?

There definitely had to have been an immune response, since the immune reaction after the 2nd shot was so much more severe than after the 1st shot.

Is it still worth getting the vaccine? Absolutely, if it works, since you may save your life and/or the lives of others, and since we NEED a vaccine to work for life to get back to normal.

However, I'm extremely concerned that once information gets out about how bad the side effects can be, especially after the 2nd shot, the anti-vaxxers are going to be all over this.

Moderna reports: systemic adverse events were more common after the second vaccination and occurred in 54% of participants the 25-μg group, 100% of the 100-μg group, 100% of the 250-μg group, with 21% reporting one or more severe events. (!) https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2022483

But Moderna also seems to brush these off as not that bad, in their paper. Based on what I experienced, it's bad.