Pfizer Covid Vaccine Experience, Cleveland, OH, USA

Cleveland, Ohio, United States

I have a history of food and drug allergies, so I had some anxiety about this, but my experience was actually pretty great.

My arm soreness with the covid vaccine was less duration than it is with flu or tetanus.

Soon after the 1st covid vaccine dose, the pain in my bicep was pretty intense within a few hours, and also I had some throbbing in my armpit (axillary lymph nodes swelling a bit) and odd ache in my leg joints...it makes no sense...maybe the hip and leg joint pain wasn't related, could have been sitting oddly when nervous, or something, not sure.

I did have a dime or nickel sized red dot near the vaccine site, not sure when it appeared, I didn't see it until about 1-2 hours post-vaccination when i removed the bandaid, but the spot disappeared within hours. About the same time the spot resolved is when the armpit throbbing/swelling resolved, too.

Anyway, the arm pain and armpit swelling resolved mostly within 24 hours, completely gone by 48-60 hours, so that was great. Flu shot pain lasts almost a week for me, and tetanus shot pain lasts a week, so this seems less intense than those other vaccines. With flu and tdap, i'll wake up in the night if i roll over on that vaccinated arm, but that didn't happen with this vaccine. Covid vaccine was very painful in bicep for about 6 hours, then quickly minimized to become less painful than flu shot and tdap shot.

I did feel fatigued the next day, but overall, my symptoms were milder than after the flu vaccine, but I am expecting the 2nd dose to cause more of a reaction.

Overall, my experience was good, was as I expected it to be. I did expect to experience some symptoms, so I wasn't concerned. | Symptoms: Fatigue, Body Ache, Joint Pain, Muscle Pain, Soreness, Swelling