[Tishabet]

Originally Posted by Chocaholic

Surprised to read of your symptoms after the first shot. Didn’t think that was very common. Got my first Pfizer shot last week. Sore arm for a day. Kind of wondering how necessary the second shot really is.

Get the second shot.

As far as symptoms after the first shot, I'm not an MD but the hypothesis I've heard is that the reason the second shot gives many people trouble is that your body is already attuned to the virus due to the first shot i.e. your body recognizes the virus the second time and bellows "not in MY house!" before laying the smackdown, thus the stronger reaction to the second shot. It's a good thing, your body is having an immune reaction as it should.

In the case of my buddy who had a tough 24 hours after his first shot, he had Covid back in November so his assumption (which seems valid to me but again, I'm not an MD and neither is he) is that he was having a strong immune reaction to shot #1 precisely because of his November bout of Covid... his body already has immune response from the November encounter with the virus so it has the "not in MY house!" response to shot #1.