Has anyone had the 2023 updated Covid shot?

Good for you. I got the booster and the flu shot in the same arm about 3 weeks ago. I'm fine now, but damn the injection site hurt for a few days. Small price to pay to avoid Covid.

I'm glad you recovered from LC and sorry you had to deal with it in the first place.

I don't know if I would get a booster if I had gone through LC. It does seem that for the vaxxed and for more of the untaxed, the symptoms now are milder than they were in 2020, before the vaccination.

I'm glad both you and denglish19 overcame LC.

Thanks denglish. Can you at least share a few of the things you did to beat LC? I think that would be useful. Thanks.

Yes, the bottom line for me is that the benefits of getting vaccinated far outweigh the potential harms. And yes, I do believe in vaccine injury from any kind of vaccine (not just mRNA.) I also agree that one should not get vaccinated while having an active Covid infection or maybe for 1 to 3 months after a Covid infection. Ask your doctor. Then ask another one. Doctors are learning in real time about this novel virus, like we all are.

Thanks for pointing out that those of us who do get vaccinated end up protecting the entire population, including people who choose not to get vaccinated. That said, booster uptake here in the US is dismal. It is prior infections that are fueling the rapid mutations of the virus. It’s bad. I do not see any slowing down of mutations, or tempering of them.

I can’t agree that the current variants are “milder”. I had BA1, the first omicron to be deemed “mild”, and it was anything but. I lost 18 months of my life to it. The recent lower death rates have been explained to me as people not being able die twice. We have successfully wiped out our most vulnerable population with anti-vax and anti-mask nonsense.

I’m part of the post Covid syndrome clinic at Mount Sinai in NYC. The smartest thing they have told me is that if anybody tells you they understand Covid, they have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. We are at least 10 years from understanding what is happening to us.

Chilling. Stay safe.

I have LC, multiple autoimmune diseases, and am 69 years old. I got my Pfizer shot 3 days ago and had mild flu-like symptoms the next day. Fine now. Vaccines work by alerting your immune system that invaders have arrived. Some vaccines are extremely effective (smallpox...) some less so (flu, covid, shingles...). This 2018 paper gives some info: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6777997/. I'd much rather have no or milder covid than deal with a slacker immune system that doesn't respond to covid. I'm also a research scientist and most papers are written to other scientists, not to the public (plus the papers are deadly boring). Too much of what the public believes about science, including vaccines, is based on anecdotes, and media. There is too much news on the left side of Dunning Kruger curves. Some of that is the fault of so much misinformation floating around. What to believe? Media has even mangled conclusions from my publications.

I got reactive arthritis in 1989 (dormant after methotrexate in 1990) because my significant other was cheating on me and gave me a STD, which activated the Reiters Syndrome (HLA B27). My celiac was triggered after getting H1N1 flu 14 years ago (~40% of the population has HLA DQ2 and/or DQ8; ~1% has celiac). A number of different things can trigger autoimmune diseases (including being female). Congrats for healing yourself; that takes a lot of study and work (and rest). My LC is improving but it will be next year before I'm back to century rides.

Adding: Vaccination and prior infection are another reason for declining death rates. But I still cannot say with certainty that the current variants are mild.

I've had LC since a mild acute case in June, 2022. I had the covid booster (along with the flu shot) last Monday. Other than a sore arm for a couple of days, I didn't experience any worsening of my symptoms (I'm 73).

i had the booster and had no reaction at all.
my LC includes tremors/vibrations and gut issues.

Thanks sushicat. Sorry for what you had to go through with Covid.

It is a strange, and unfortunately/illogically, a political virus. And yeah the number of people getting the booster is pathetically low. I don't get it - people have short memories I guess.

I had a very mild case of Covid (in 2022 I think, after being vaxxed a few times) and I probably would have missed it but had an extra test kit. I had very mild cold symptoms/sore throat for five days, and that's it. And I was 68 y/o at the time.

I just hope that all the ignorance about the virus doesn't cause a new surge in serious infections. I don't think it will happen because enough people have either had it, and lived, or been vaxxed.

And you are absolutely right when you say we know very little about this virus. LC is a mystery. I was 68 and got mild symptoms. My trainer is 27 and the picture of health, was vaxxed, and caught it and was out for a week with a temp over 100 degrees. It's nothing to mess with.

But conspiracy theories abound and won't be quelled. So for those of us who understand this virus' potential for harm, and understand the overwhelming safety profile of vaccinations, I hope we can live healthy lives.

Quick note: the US has experienced a new surge this summer/fall, it is just harder to “see” because of data suppression. Cases are no longer being reported, hospitals are not testing every patient, and hospital deaths in patients that turned out to be Covid positive end up in the “with Covid” pile, not “of Covid.”

Covid kills not only during the acute phase of the infection, but in the months after. Heart attack, stroke, clots. But now there is evidence that some cancers are being triggered or accelerated by post Covid syndrome. Then there are the new autoimmune diseases and neurodegenerative ones.

Remember the Spanish Flu of 1918? In the years that followed, there was a wave of extreme-rigidity Parkinson’s disease that permanently disabled many people, including the very young. It was because of that flu virus, which was novel at the time. The movie “Awakenings” with Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams is about those patients lives, decades later.

I know I’m coming off as a Debbie Downer, but I think there is a lot more Covid devastation ahead of us. Maybe not in morgue trucks and body tents outside my NYC apartment. But in the fallout from repeat infections in the vaccinated, unvaccinated and under vaccinated. I worry about people with many decades of life ahead of them more than I worry about my middle-aged self.

I sure hope we get a sterilizing vaccine soon.

Take care.