Autism and the Covid Vaccination: anyone been vaccinated?
As adults, I agree, but as an Aspie with an AS mother, I never bonded with either parent, and when I was first taken for vaccinations, the EXPERIENCE shattered my faith in people, leading to a withdrawal similar to those many parents have described.
Literally the last the thread I created was "are kids being vaccinated to often" or something along the lines of that until life events with an idiotic tenant caused me to not log in for a while. That thread didn't particularly go well but yes I agree with you, people need to be careful who and why they vaccinate otherwise it damages trust to just go ballistic with the needles without careful consideration. Any opportunity to get rid of a vaccine or booster where it's not needed especially with kids might do more to restore trust in medicine with that child than an over administered vaccine itself.
The UK got rid of the TB jab 15 years ago and just as well because it was a particularly painful jab that leaves a life long scar on everyone who has it and terrified year group after year group at the school I went to. That jab was like acid and probably put a lot of kids off having another jab, many more important for a long time. To this day there has been no real issues with tuberculosis despite immunity against TB no doubt taking a nosedive.
Dear_one
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There are a little too many vaccines around for my liking now. Vaccines are very effective with a lot of illnesses but only a certain number of people need vaccines or boosters to kick a disease to the kerb. Vaccinating all females for illness A and males for illness B might have very similar levels of effectiveness as vaccinating everyone for A and B. Nobody has been vaccinated against TB for years and years here and nothing bad has happened.
I've had the first Covid jab just for the sake of a low vaccine uptake being used as an excuse to go into another lockdown but I know full well that jab was a jab wasted as I'm only 30 and extremely unlikely to be harmed by the virus. I don't know why Covid isn't being treated like the flu where all vulnerable are protected and the young are left to go on their way. I think the obsession with vaccinating every single last soul is harmful as the vaccine manufacturing facilities are creaking and groaning under the immense pressure of making so many vaccines when they could be doing something far more useful.......like keeping up with new strains. The inertia of a gargantuan industrialised vaccine making machine having the agility to keep up with new strains is what's worrying me now.
It gives me the impression of a fat guy playing whack a mole with a massive sledge hammer.
Dear_one
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I've never yet accepted an offer for any of these old people's flu jabs. They're only about 50% effective and they have a lot of trouble keeping up with variants. Plus I hardly ever get flu. And I hate going to see the doctor. I don't mix physically with people very much. And there's the inertia factor - if I don't feel a pressing need to do a thing, it tends not to get done. If I start feeling vulnerable to flu then I might change my mind.
The Covid vaccine was another matter entirely. That disease is horribly contagious. My wife ticks most of the boxes for being the type that Covid would kill, so anything I can do to stop her catching it, I'm likely to do. They think the jab reduces the chances of spreading it, which seems plausible to me. I don't have health insurance so if I caught Covid and needed medical help while in the USA then it could bankrupt me. It might also reduce the risk that international travel might lead to a demand for me to quarantine. So I got both Covid jabs as soon as I was eligible, and now I feel a tad safer. It's quite possible a variant or two will break through the vaccine soon. I hope not, but if it happens then there's a good chance they'll have a vaccine for that pretty quickly, and it it looks good then I'll get that one too.
As for the actual vaccine experience, the jab process itself was pretty trivial and easy to get done. With the first jab my arm was moderately painful after a few hours and stayed that way for a couple of days. I felt kind of woozy and weird the day after, but as that's normal for me it's hard to be sure whether it was because of the jab or just my body being its uncomfortable self. I got the same arm pain after the second jab, and definite flu-like symptoms the day after - aching lymph nodes, slight headache and a sense that I was going down with flu. Annoyingly it turned out to be slightly unwise to take anti-inflammatory tablets, so I decided not to do that, and therefore had no effective way to reduce the symptoms, so I had to just wait it out. But it wasn't terrible, just moderately uncomfortable, and I was back to normal after that "bad" day. It didn't stop me getting on with my life, just put a bit of a damper on it. And at least the symptoms reassured me that the vaccine was probably provoking a significant immune response.
Double Retired
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Also, the more copies of the virus there are the more chances there are for it to mutate. Maybe a new variant will also be stopped by a vaccine, maybe not. Maybe a new variant won't care who is young and healthy and will kill them, too.
Not due to COVID, but I spent some time in the hospital in February 2020. It took my throat two months to recover completely from 32 hours of intubation. I don't want that again.
(P.S. I lived! My bride seemed genuinely pleased by that.)
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Wikipedia has a list of notable deaths to COVID. It includes folk under-40...some of them were athletes.
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When diagnosed I bought champagne!
I finally knew why people were strange.
Also, the more copies of the virus there are the more chances there are for it to mutate. Maybe a new variant will also be stopped by a vaccine, maybe not. Maybe a new variant won't care who is young and healthy and will kill them, too.
Not due to COVID, but I spent some time in the hospital in February 2020. It took my throat two months to recover completely from 32 hours of intubation. I don't want that again.
(P.S. I lived! My bride seemed genuinely pleased by that.)
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Wikipedia has a list of notable deaths to COVID. It includes folk under-40...some of them were athletes.
I had my first vaccine yesterday and intend to take the second when the appointment sheet gives me the time and date but I still believe that it's a waste of a vaccine. I would rather them be sent to countries that are struggling to vaccinate their vulnerable. The prospect of people as young as me being harmed by the virus is very slim (though not impossible) and the ability of the vaccine to prevent someone becoming a host is still up for debate.
Yes, the younger and healthier you are the less likely you're going to get ill or die from the virus. Millions of people fully recovered from the virus, millions more probably had the virus and never even knew. Yes I know people bang on about COVID having long term effects but anything can. Pregnancy can be known to permanently damage an organ such as the bladder. I know a guy who got food poisoning and it took him 9-10 weeks to recover. He was young and healthy.
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Dear_one
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I'm only 37 and COVID seriously destroyed me.
Actually, most people with Long Haul COVID are 40 or younger. Most people who have organ damage don't even realize it until their scans come back. Check out "Happy Hypoxia"; doctors are baffled by these people who have dangerously low oxygen levels, but seem to otherwise be functioning normally.
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I'm only 37 and COVID seriously destroyed me.
Actually, most people with Long Haul COVID are 40 or younger. Most people who have organ damage don't even realize it until their scans come back. Check out "Happy Hypoxia"; doctors are baffled by these people who have dangerously low oxygen levels, but seem to otherwise be functioning normally.
Don't take this the wrong way and you don't need to answer if you don't want to, but do you have any other medical problems that would explain why Covid hit you so hard? It's very unusual for someone in their 30s to experience many problems for Covid.
Maybe I should've been more specific: Long-Haul Covid messed me up, the initial Covid illness was actually quite mild. I wasn't hospitalized or anything like that. (It's much more common for people who were not hospitalized to end up with PASC, as Dr. Fauchi likes to call it.)
I did have auto-immune issues before COVID, but I suspect, like Long-Haul Covid itself, these issues were caused by previous viral infections, so less "cause" and more "effect" there.
Doctors don't yet know why some people are much more susceptible to post-viral syndrome and/or viral persistence than others, but it seems to affect women on an 80:20 ratio, so it's possible that it could be hormone related?
They also suspect it could be due to gut issues, but people on the Autism spectrum commonly have gut issues, and it seems that COVID complications, in this community at least, are quite rare.
...but then again, I have seen very few people on the site who are even aware of having contracted COVID at all...
Like I said, statistically speaking, most Long Haulers are under the age of 40.
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dragonsanddemons
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It was Phizer, and I’m now over two weeks past the second shot, still nothing more than a sore arm the day after for either, for whatever that’s worth.
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Yet in my new wildness and freedom I almost welcome the bitterness of alienage. For although nepenthe has calmed me, I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men.
-H. P. Lovecraft, "The Outsider"
I think sometimes the more you overthink about something, the less you'll know what you want to do. I just read the numbers from the vaccine trials and found out each possible vaccine's ingredients, and made sure I wasn't allergic to any of those. Those are public information and I don't see what can possibly hide there.
Sometimes it's like getting a new job, moving to a new place, getting married or having children, if you think about what might possibly happen you'll never be able to do them. No part of life is a sure thing. I definitely don't like surprises but they do bring challenges and excitements. So, make a decision and stop worrying too much. It's not worth all the anxiety either way.
*I want to clarify that my moderate side effects from the first shot was possibly "well above average" in severity. I might have had Covid last year, before tests were available. More pronounced side effects are normal for people with Covid antibodies already. No need to be scared about feeling awful. Most people I know hardly felt anything after the first shot.
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Aspie mom to two autistic sons (21 & 20 )
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