The Astrazeneca jab: Will you take it or not? My experience Part 2

Finally, I'm able to complete the 2 doses of the Astrazeneca vaccine and to which I'm truly thankful and grateful for. As you might know, there has been recent articles and news here in the Philippines regarding increasing cases of rare blood clots in other countries that had scared some people off. But I still believe that this vaccine is more reliable than any other that is endorsed by the government. 

My second shot of this vaccine was overall a breeze though I experienced a painful shot of about 6 out of 10 during injection (I asked my co-worker as we had the same vaccinator but she hadn't experience that so I guess it was case to case basis) as I haven't felt a thing during my first shot of the vaccine. There was also an increase in my blood pressure from 90/70 mmHg pre-vaccination to 110/80 mmHg post vaccination. This is within normal range and should be expected. There wasn't a 30 minute observation time unlike in the first dose experience however during post vaccination assessment my heart rate shoot up to a 105 and that I was asked to go to the observational area to rest for around 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, I was discharged and was good to go. Yay!

 What I can note is that there was a pain in the injection site which was prominent after an hour but it was tolerable. After some time, the pain decreased at rest. I felt again the pain when I started to move my arm upwards. There was no fever, chills, headache, dizziness or body ache/joint pains noted. For about 4 hours post vaccine, pain in the arm decreased from 6 out of 10 to around 2 out of 10. At home, I noticed that my head is cold and clammy. There was one time that my ankle ached at night but it eventually subsided. When I tried to put pressure on the injection site, the pain increased to 6 again and I just slept it off. The next day, there was no pain but the site was still sore with movement.

It takes at least 2 weeks after completing your shot before you can say that you are fully protected. However, let me tell you that being fully vaccinated doesn't guarantee that you won't catch COVID. So let us do our part in ending this pandemic by wearing masks, observe social distancing and most importantly is hand hygiene.

I hope you're all well and stay safe!