This is a comprehensive list of side effects I faced after taking the Covishield vaccine. I took the vaccine on Wednesday and fully recovered by Friday. If you Google common side effects Covishield vaccine you will find a list that includes the following.
Most common:
- Pain or tenderness at the injection site
- Headache
- Tiredness
- Muscle or joint aches
- Fever
- Chills
- Nausea
These are the most common side effects. There are other adverse side effects but my point here is to explain the common ones that I faced directly from experience. I had the vaccination around 11:30 in the morning and was perfectly fine up till 6:00 PM around 6:00 PM I started feeling like as if something was happening but it still didn’t really register. By 8:00 PM after cooking dinner I started feeling mild body ache which I attributed to just a physical activity from spending a long time in the kitchen. However, after dinner the beginning of a mild fever was starting to register with me. I took a Combiflam tablet and arranged stuff for a cold compress in case I need it later at night. As the night progressed the fever started to increase however it never really went above 102 and the body ache followed by the eye pain was the more severe of the side effects I was facing. The pain is actually a headache that just behind my eyes. This continued all the way till around 3:30AM in the morning at which point I figured I should go to the Emergency room and try and get an injection for the fever that will help me sleep. I was denied treatment saying that the side effects were normal so I proceeded to my sisters’ place where I continued with cold compress and Combiflam. By morning the fever hadn’t abated and the headache had gotten worse. This could also have been aggravated by the fact that I wasn’t eating and my body was slowly getting dehydrated. Around 11:00 AM I had breakfast at which point I noticed that I was having some trouble with tasting the food. This could obviously be just a side effect of the fever. Having said that, after some food went in, I started feeling much better and I think a lot of the headache was maybe just related to the dehydration. By afternoon the headache had gone but the fever still persisted. When I say persisted what I mean here is that it never fully went away but at the same time it never really reached its peak. I felt like as if every time I snuggle under the blanket it would pop right up and I would have to start taking tablets to bring it down. The fact is with the headache gone I was feeling a lot better, good enough to fight back. A tablet of Dolo 650 every four to five hours kept the fever at Bay and small snacks every few hours helped do stave off the weakness.
By evening the fever seemed to have been brought under controls and I felt good enough to go back home. Typically, the symptoms usually relapse in the evening but I was feeling confident that I have gone through the worst of it and therefore was able to take care of myself. I have a mild throat pain which I feel is also aggravating my lungs because of the nasal drip. It’s not really significant because the pain is hardly noticeable unless I try to exert my voice. And the cough I think is really aggravated because of the weather. Both of these are now gone as of Friday. I spent most of Friday in a state similar to a mild hangover.
I think at this point it is safe to say that I been through the worst of it. Pain and a small swelling at the injection site is pretty much the only thing that actually remains. It’s more of an irritant than anything else try not to scratch it. Some of the lessons I’ve learned as a result of this include don’t try to do it alone, be prepared with the right medicines beforehand, try not to overthink the problem, give your body time to heal and eat properly. I think it is safe to say that everybody should take the injection simply because as far as I’m concerned, we have taken injections for all other diseases for quite some time whether it’s polio, tetanus, DPT or any other disease and I think it’s silly to think our uncertainty over one new disease should overshadow the success of all the others that came before it. As to why I chose Covishield? It was simply a matter of finding the vaccine that will allow me to travel internationally. Covishield has a fairly large gap between the two doses which does make it inconvenient but better safe than sorry. Hope this was informative.