How to Prepare at Home for a Delayed Covid-19 Vaccine Reaction

You might have been fortunate to already get one or both of your Covid-19 vaccines or are about to get one soon. Many will experience just a minor reaction at the injection site with a sore arm for a few days like I did, which is a good thing because it shows that your body is building protective antibodies. However, you may also discover that you can have a delayed reaction to the Covid-19 vaccine such as one a family member had one week later that was much more serious. Though I hope you and your family never have this happen, it is helpful to be prepared at home in the right way to care for yourself or that family member. Therefore, let me share some valuable tips for home preparation to get through those uncomfortable vaccine reaction days.

Initially this family member only had an arm that was a bit sore that felt worse if raising it along with slight redness around the injection. This reaction lasted about three days until feeling normal again. It gets better because on the seventh day of that Moderna vaccine, she was feeling feverish, nauseated and had extreme difficulty walking with how stiff her muscles became. Without help, she couldn’t even maneuver her stiff legs enough by herself to walk alone to the bathroom–let alone be able to cook.

With that said, here is how to prepare in case of a delayed reaction of the Covid-19 vaccine because you might not realize such a response could be coming. You want to keep a supply of certain foods on hand such as crackers, soup, cheese, peanut butter, eggs, ginger ale, milk, leftovers in the refrigerator in portion size containers that are ready for the microwave to frozen dinners. More important, you want the food close by instead of having some of it stored in different levels of your home such as in a pantry near your game room. If you have a two-story home, you just may want to have bedding ready to camp out on your sofa and closer to the kitchen area over trying to attempt walking stairs.

My family member had one very bad day from this vaccine reaction, but the next day she showed improvement in getting her legs to work. Let me elaborate that she still needed assistance supporting her for bathroom trips in between recovering yet in bed. Meals were brought to her, which not all people will be able to count on living alone.

It is now day three since she had that delayed reaction to the Covid-19 vaccine from her first injection. She is still recovering in bed and experiencing some nausea, but her legs are becoming stronger and no feverish feeling head.

I called Moderna’s hot line to report a negative vaccine reaction. After the information was taken, they couldn’t give me more answers than what their customer service person read to me from their informational sheet since this was such a new vaccine.

Further investigation let me to the website of American Academy of Allergy & Immunology where I found another delayed reaction that happened to a seventy-year-old woman after eight days. This woman was also concerned about whether or not to take the second Moderna vaccine, but the expert advice was to take it because as I understood it, such symptoms did not qualify as a severe allergic reaction or immediate allergic reaction.

Honestly, it is not my intention to frighten of what a delayed Covid-19 vaccine reaction could be like. This is just what happened to my family member and each of us are different in how our immune systems work. My purpose is just to encourage you to think ahead in the event of a delayed vaccine reaction happens and prepare your food and its location accordingly.