Stabbing for science, part 1

[wildeabandon]

I got my first jab on Friday, which was quite exciting. The set up seemed pretty efficient. I arrived exactly on time for my appointment (or rather, I arrived ten minutes early, then got lost in the warren of the hospital, and made it to the clinic exactly on time) and they took me through pretty much immediately. They did a bunch of tests - the usual blood pressure, temperature, height, weight and so on, plus some feeling of my neck/chest/abdomen to make sure there was nothing unexpected (there wasn't). They also did a lateral flow antigen and a fingerprick antibody test, both of which came up negative. The antibody result in particular was interesting data, as I had thought it at least plausible that I'd had an asymptomatic case in February 2020. Obviously a negative antibody test doesn't mean that I haven't had it, but it certainly makes it less likely.

Then there were blood and urine tests, and quite a bit of paperwork including a moderately detailed medical history. I did give them the feedback that although it wasn't exactly relevant to me because I'm several years post-hysterectomy, they might want to revisit the 'women of childbearing potential' language when asking if there was any possibility of pregnancy, which they took on board. They also asked for my bank details, because it turns out that they're offering financial compensation to participants, which I hadn't realised, so that was a pleasant surprise.

Once all the paperwork was filled out, and the doctor had talked me through the symptom logging app and given me a digital thermometer and a widget for measuring the size of any redness or swelling around the injection site, a nurse came and stabbed me, which was very quick and painless. I had to hang around for half an hour for observations, then they took my blood pressure and pulse again, and then let me go.

I had very little in the way of side effects. Nothing on day one, and on day two there was some very slight tenderness around the site if I gave it a vigorous poke. On day three I had a very brief and mild headache, but it went away almost immediately after I put my phone away, so I suspect it had more to do with staring at a screen for hours at a time after not getting quite enough sleep the night before than being an actual side effect. I still filled it in on the symptom log though. I've got to keep it for seven days in total. The second shot will be four weeks after the first one, and then there'll be follow up appointments after two weeks, ten weeks, 7 months, and 12 months.

Comments

[cosmolinguist]

Yay, thank you for doing the science.

[mtbc]

Sounds great, well worth doing.

[mtbc]

Can they somehow give you a vague document if somebody wants proof you've been vaccinated?

[juliet]

I am in a different study & had a thing through this week from the National Institute for Health Research (who, among other things, advocate for the rights of research participants) where they say they are in the process of making sure that vaccine study participation info will show up on the NHS app which I believe is the current main candidate for showing that data. (Which has some problems in itself, but that's a different matter.) So there are certainly people actively trying to make sure this happens appropriately for all vaccine trial participants.

(In my case I also got a nice A4 piece of card once I was all vaccinated.)

[mtbc]

That's good to hear, hadn't heard about the app.

[wildeabandon]

I haven't actually asked them, but I did sign a thing saying that they could tell the NHS that is been vaccinated so they stop offering me one, so I imagine that I'll get the same app based evidence that everyone else does. I'm not planning on leaving the UK any time soon in any case.

[mtbc]

Ah, if international travel's likely the only need anyway, that sure helps. I've even used my vaccine record card to get free doughnuts. (-:

[ludy]

Yay! for Science!
Thank you for doing this.
Glad they are looking after you in such detail

[juliet]

Yay science!

[damerell]

I scored out that line (assuming our consent forms had the same wording) since I wasn't going to sign to say I was a woman of childbearing age, even if I am as sure as anyone can be that I'm not pregnant.

The other glitch I had was you sign to say you've read the vaccine information sheet and their workflow is not prepared for someone to ask for the vaccine information sheet to read it before signing.

[wildeabandon]

Ooh, are you on the same trial?

The form I signed says that I'd read the participant information sheet, which they sent me in advance,and had a copy of at the appointment.

[damerell]

No, I'm a regular member of Team Pfizer; I got it early because I work on the Addies site and some of our researchers are patient-facing.

[hutchingsmusic]

Good to know you also had a lack of side effects - I'm on the Valneva trial too and got mine last week, some fatigue but no symptoms at all around the injection site (so I'm reasonably sure I got the Valneva instead of being in the AZ control group, as the trial's double blinded). I get my next shot in 3 weeks.