Should type 1s get a third Pfizer shot?

I got my third Pfizer dose on Wednesday!

When I told colleagues at work, they seemed to be most concerned about what side effects might occur with a booster dose. I figured I’d share my experience here. The CDC has said that the side effects for the third dose are expected to be similar to those you experienced for the second.

My experience with the second dose was a painful arm and feeling a little under the weather after 24 hours.

I had the same pain in my arm with the third dose, but I only felt a little tired about 24 hours afterward - better than after dose 2. The pain in my arm is nearly gone now- at about 36 hours after my shot.

I’m excited to have another layer of protection against infection. It will be nice to feel more comfortable/safe while out and about.

I’m glad to see that there’s concrete movement for the Moderna booster dose approval. In the article that @John58 linked to above, this paragraph caught my eye.

“They should know that for the most part, they are still really quite protected,” Fauci said of Moderna recipients. According to a Sept. 17 study from the CDC, Moderna was still 95 percent effective against COVID hospitalization amid the Delta variant surge from June to August, while Pfizer’s vaccine had been reduced to an 80 percent effectiveness during the same timeframe.

With the original Moderna series providing 95% protection against hospitalization, even in the face of the Delta variant surge, I’m persuaded to wait for the final decision. As someone who has lived with diabetes, I’ve witnessed and been surprised many times to discover that less is more.

Just adding my 2 cents to this thread:

LADA here — got my 3rd Pfizer booster from local CVS on Sept 3.

No pain.

No aftermath.

No blip on the insulin or BG levels. (Which, considering I’m highly reactive to cortisone and caffeine, shows how this disease just likes to mess with us. :smile: )

My COVID protocols:
• N95 in stores

• N95 outside dining —ate outside once, lift mask between bites

• Regular mask indoors amongst other vaccinated people I know and trust, but don’t live with

• Only have 1 person I live with unmasked / in my pod

Everyone here with PWD works so hard to stay alive and healthy — there’s no way we should let COVID take another life.

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I got my 3rd shot, nothing but a sore shoulder.

I received my 3rd Moderna shot on Monday. I was fine for the first 11 hrs, but then my glucose level rose to 170 and a bolus shot didn’t work nor did a second bolus shot. Riding the bike at 10:00 pm didn’t help either. Shortly after this I started running a fever and my head started hurting. I got very little sleep that night. I was lethargic most of Tuesday, but by dinner time I was fine.

My son had the same reaction from his 3rd Pfizer shot.

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My moderna booster was similar symptoms!! I required almost double insulin through the next day.

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I received my third vaccine shot last Monday (Pfizer booster). My BG shot up to 400 within 12 hours and I felt like I had the flu. That being said, I would still get the booster if I had it to do again. Also, CVS didn’t ask for any proof of being diabetic to qualify for the booster. Seems like it would be pretty easy for anyone to get it, at least in the US.

I hope you’re feeling better now Chris.

The eligibility criteria has been expanded to include anyone who is at least 6 months out from their second dose (2 months for J&J).

There is evidence of waning immunity from infections across all ages as well as some waning immunity against severe disease (to a much lesser degree than infections). As a consequence, eligibility was expanded to include basically everyone.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02249-2/fulltext

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I got Pfizer shot #3 yesterday afternoon. My vote on the question, clearly, is affirmative.
Interesting, my arm is a bit more sore than the first two shots but otherwise no untoward effects. My glucose has never been better. 98% in range past 48 hrs. Woohoo!
Anyway best of luck.

I am 67 and live in upstate NY (finger lakes region). I got a Moderna booster shot back on 5 November. I live alone and don’t really have anyone I could fall back on for help if I became seriously ill, so I feel I can’t afford to take any chances with covid.

That said, I’ve never had a significant reaction to the Moderna vaccine. I get, but also expect, soreness in the arm I was injected in. But nothing much beyond that and it goes away in a day or three. Moderna vaccine for me is pretty much the same experience as getting the flu vaccine. :wink:

A question I have never seen asked or answered is whether or not a strong reaction to the vaccine might mean anything in terms of what your experience of the actual virus might be. My speculation is that if you had a strong reaction to the vaccine then you should be truly happy that you got vaxed since the actual virus would probably hit you even harder. But it’s just a guess. And I suspect that there may not be any current way to know whether or not that guess means anything. :man_shrugging:

I also got moderna. But I had a mild covid infection early on.

U had a strong reaction to all 3 injections. I don’t know if it’s because I caught covid in the wild or not.

I do know that strong reactions do not mean you are better protected. People react differently just the same as people react differently to getting the disease.
Like me some people barely know they are sick and others die.

I’ve read the data, reactions don’t correlate to any better protection, but I agree it makes me feel like I got something when I feel ill for a day.

But it’s really a non issue

I am not sure if your post was in response to my post or not. But, for whatever it’s worth, I did not mean to imply that one’s reaction to the vaccine has any correlation to the “protection” the vaccine might provide. I was speculating that a strong reaction to the vaccine might also imply a strong reaction to the actual covid virus if you were unvaccinated.

I expect this is a question that can’t actually be answered. I only ask it because I’m a human being so I can’t help trying to find a pattern where probably none exists. It’s just what human beings do. :man_shrugging:

Ok well makes for a good conversation.

I had a very minor reaction to covid.
I had a very strong reaction to the vaccine.

Soooo yea. For what that’s worth.

Untestable by the very nature of the question, but it’s interesting if you could somehow know. I don’t think it would necessarily be related to death rates (reactions to the vaccine seem stronger in younger people on average, and obviously deaths are higher for older people), but I wonder about long covid.

For me, my first dose of the Moderna vaccine seems to have triggered a new autoimmune condition causing inflammatory arthritis. I am pretty sure that my T1D was triggered by a bad flu, and I had some kind of long lasting (likely also autoimmune) damage to my fascia and other tissues triggered by Epstein-Barr infection. My immune system clearly seems very easily triggered by viruses, to the point where even the vaccine this time around was enough. I don’t regret getting it though, since I think that means the virus would have only been that much worse. I strongly suspect if I had encountered COVID unvaccinated, I would have likely not only gotten the same arthritis from that, but also bad long covid (which also seems to be an autoimmune post-infectious syndrome with significant autonomic nervous system effects, much like Lyme disease), but I’ll never know since hopefully now I’m protected against the full brunt of it (though who knows how effective the current vaccines will be against Omicron).

I got Pfizer #3 yesterday. My Dexcom readings are more bouncy than usual, so I’m keeping a pretty close eye on it. Nothing extreme, but I’m getting readings in the 160 range that have been difficult to bring down. Could be my immune system yelling “INTRUDER! INTRUDER!” I had a similar reaction to the previous 2 shots.

Other than a sore spot where the vaccine went in, no other symptoms so far.

My mom died of covid last year, so each vaccination is bittersweet for me.

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