Coronavirus prep

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  • jenilla1
    jenilla1 Posts: 11,117 Member
    lokihen wrote: »
    Hypothetical: if there were no restrictions, costs, shortages and you could choose which vaccine to receive, which would you?

    J&J because there's only one shot to mess with.
  • MikePfirrman
    MikePfirrman Posts: 3,307 Member
    kimny72 wrote: »
    oocdc2 wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    lokihen wrote: »
    Hypothetical: if there were no restrictions, costs, shortages and you could choose which vaccine to receive, which would you?

    Prob J&J since it's one and done. I think we will find when it's all said and done that they all do the job, but that's just my personal gut take based on what I've heard.

    I wondered about that, too. This article says they vary slightly, but all generally will get the job done: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/03/pfizer-moderna-and-johnson-johnson-vaccines-compared/618226/

    By the grace of the gods, I should be getting the J&J vaccine this Friday from my VA hospital. My parents get their second Pfizer dose on the 26th from their county. I'm looking forward to when children can get vaccinated, just because I worry about mine.

    There's some data that suggests that antibody levels continue to rise well past 4 weeks after J&J. It's quite possible that 3 months after any of the vaccines, effectiveness is quite similar.

    If you get an mRNA you don't reach advertised efficiency until 2 weeks after the second shot. So if I get J&J, I'm not going to consider myself "done" until 6 weeks after. :smiley:

    I forget which one, but one of the vaccines is now trialing ages 12-18. Im hoping at least one of them will be approved for children in time for fall.

    I have some AHCC on hand that I kept, just in case I got Covid-19 (or my wife did). I'm also reading that AHCC, which is a very popular mushroom supplement in Japan that's derived from mushrooms, boosts the effectiveness of the flu vaccine. There are numerous studies going on currently to see if it does the same for the Covid-19 vaccine. It allegedly boosts the number of antibodies and also the T-Cell response.

    There was a lot of talk a few pages back about shingles. AHCC is also very effective at lessening the symptoms of shingles if you get them. It's also been demonstrated to clear certain potentially dangerous HPV infections. I do wonder if it could also significantly help with long haulers.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,864 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    kimny72 wrote: »
    I listened to a TWIV quick clinical update with some interesting stuff:

    They did a quick update on the J&J vaccine now that more data has been released. They said after 28 days, J&J had a 100% effective rate as far as preventing disease requiring serious medical intervention or hospitalization. They also PCR tested everyone between 29 and 71 days after the one shot for viral particles that would show some level of asymptomatic infection leading to spread and found the vaccine was 74% effective overall. Especially considering this trial was run after some of the more worrisome variants are out there, this is another hint that the vaccines will at least greatly reduce transmission, which is kind of awesome.

    Still early, but no serious side effects have been reported yet, just soar arm and fatigue. They noted that J&J uses the same vaccine platform for their ebola vaccine, which has been given to over 200,000 people over the last decade, so there is every reason to be confident in the safety.

    They also mentioned that many studies are now showing no benefit to treatment with convalescent plasma, it just doesn't seem to help at all.

    The standard at this point is monoclonal antibodies early in disease, and steroids in those who are very ill. If you test positive and have ANY increased risk factors, you should advocate for yourself and make sure you get the monoclonal antibody serum if at all positive.

    Speaking of plasma, a branch of this place just opened near me:

    https://octapharmaplasma.com/about

    I thought they were going to GIVE treatments, and expected them to close again quickly. But it looks like they are collecting blood, which seems like an odd business model.

    I knew some college students who basically used getting paid for their plasma as a side gig.

    I don't remember the spiel I got the first few times I gave blood, but I think plasma is used in several traumatic injury type treatments. When I was donating platelets, they also used to take a bag of plasma too.
    It was illegal to get paid for blood/blood component donations in NY, but now that I'm in VA I noticed there are a couple of collection businesses around here.

    Yeah, I had friends in college even back in the 1970s that gave plasma for cash, at businesses like that. Don't know about now, but they used to be more common in college towns and in very low income areas or areas with a lot of unemployment/homelessness.

    I sold plasma all through college (late 90/early 2000s), I don't know if that's still a common thing but I always saw a lot of fellow students when I was there.

    Same...college, late 90s/through early 2000s...I sold plasma for my beer money.
  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,849 Member
    Are you overweight? In some states, that's all it takes.
  • musicfan68
    musicfan68 Posts: 1,146 Member
    I'm slightly overweight. I just think it's because I'm disabled.
  • Theo166
    Theo166 Posts: 2,564 Member
    Yea, I got a call-back and am now scheduled for my 1st shot this Sunday
  • Psychgrrl
    Psychgrrl Posts: 3,177 Member
    edited March 2021
    hipari wrote: »
    33gail33 wrote: »
    I had a covid test yesterday and today I have what feels like a mild sinus headache/irritation under the eye on the side they did the "brain poke". Anyone else have this, and is it normal? It's not really bad but considering I have to get tested weekly now it is gonna be annoying if this happens every time.

    I’ve been tested 3 times, and the first time my tissues up there were pretty irritated for a couple of days after. Felt kinda similar to the burning feeling of accidentally getting chlorine water from a pool sucked up your nose, except it was only on one side. The next two were significantly easier - the second one was irritated for a few hours, and the last one (last week) was feeling normal by the time I got back home from the test center.

    I think it’s a combination of what else you have going on (some flu symptoms make those tissues more sensitive than others), how the swab hits you (I swear I heard something crunch inside my head on the first time) and how relaxed you are (if you’re very tense, there’s probably more pushback from your muscles and the nurse can’t be as gentle).

    I was getting tested twice weekly, am back to one. I don’t have the best nose, so when the new q-tips were larger one week noticed and commented and the nurse was surprised.

    They are comparing results with the saliva test, so I’ve been doing both. Saliva is cheaper and faster, but PCR is considered the “gold standard.” I’d rather shove the q-tip up my nose. You cant eat or drink for a half-hour before the saliva test and you have to produce a LOT. It takes me forever to fill up the tube enough (picture calendar pages flying off the wall and seasons changing out the window). Makes me think I should have participated in competing spitting when I was a kid. 😤
  • Psychgrrl
    Psychgrrl Posts: 3,177 Member
    edited March 2021
    lemurcat2 wrote: »
    On March 3 of last year I was monitoring the virus (the first case in Chicago was reported in late January, and I was paying attention to the number of cases), but way more focused on Super Tuesday. I did not yet have any intention of voting early in the primary (ours was March 17, I actually voted on March 13), and I wasn't particularly worried about any shortages (although apparently I said something about stocking up on toilet paper in this thread). I was lucky that I never really had to deal with any significant shortages, as it happens. I was also joking about mask ads, and didn't really believe that masks would be used in a widespread way, and did not expect to work from home for any extended period of time -- at some time around then (might have been late Feb, however), I recall a workplace meeting where someone talked about making sure we all had what we needed to work from home (which sounded awful to me), and I recall thinking they were overreacting and that would never happen. Sigh.

    Today is March 12. One year ago today, our Chancellor announced online classes and sent everyone home (who could go home) and we began scrambling to figure out how to best keep everyone safe and healthy who remained with us.

    We were lucky with the tremendously amount of resources and knowledge to which we had access. As well as a really generous COVID paid leave program.

    And we still have some international students whose visas have expired and who cannot get home. They are truly in limbo. 😞
  • Psychgrrl
    Psychgrrl Posts: 3,177 Member
    33gail33 wrote: »
    hipari wrote: »
    33gail33 wrote: »
    33gail33 wrote: »
    33gail33 wrote: »
    Re vaccination anecdotes: my young and perfectly healthy DIL (27) developed shingles one week after her first dose. I (55) got my first shot yesterday - no issues as of yet.

    I’m just wondering if your DIL had the chicken pox vaccine.

    I'm not sure - I just assumed she had chicken pox. My son is her same age and he didn't have the vaccine I don't think it was around back then? Or maybe it came out after he already had chicken pox he was very young when he got it.

    Edit: no vaccine, she had chicken pox as a kid. The vaccine wasn't licensed in Canada until 1998 and the vaccine programs started in 2000.

    Is it just me, or do others seem to have someone who disagrees with literally every post they write? Idk it just seems odd that someone would disagree with the above statements of fact. Like do they disagree that my son had chicken pox as a very young child? Or that the chicken pox vaccine was licensed in Canada in 1998? It doesn't really matter - it just really confuses me.

    I feel like maybe someone has a problem with me and just disagrees with everything I post.

    Yeah - disagrees happen (and btw, I know we had a lil’ argument over vaccinating pregnant women a few pages back, but I’m not your disagree stalker, we’re cool). However I have a question about the chicken pox. I didn’t know it could affect covid vaccinations, could you elaborate on that?

    I never had the chicken pox vaccine eiher and hadn’t even heard there’s a vaccine for it until I traveled to the US for an exchange program in 2008 and had to have either the vaccine or confirmation that I’d had it. Got blood tests to confirm I had it basically asymptomatically around the same time my best friend and my sister had it when we were kids. I lucked out with that one - a former colleague got chicken pox as an adult and it was nasty. Apparently the vaccine is in our national vaccination program for kids now.

    I can’t really elaborate on it - I just know that my DIL had the Pfizer vaccine and 6 days later was diagnosed with shingles (which is a reemergence of the chicken pox virus). I suspect there might be a connection between the two as she is healthy otherwise and it is very unusual for a healthy young person to suddenly come down with shingles. She has since been in contact with others online who had a similar experience- but as of now there is no data or study showing that shingles can be triggered by the vaccine. I can’t say that it was the vaccine that triggered it, but I think it is plausible at least.

    I think it’s any vaccine, not just the shingles/chicken pox vaccine. That was one of the questions I was asked when I was filling out my form to schedule my appointment. They asked about a lot within the last 90 days. Though I don’t recall being asked about the flu vaccine. Doesn’t mean we weren’t. Hepatitis, meningitis, MMR, Tetanus, etc. maybe the concern is magnification of side effects to the immune response with multiple recent vaccinations.