I got my first dose of AstraZeneca Covishield covid-19 vaccine injection on Sunday and I experienced some vaccine side-effects afterwards. Let me tell you how it all went by.

As of today, 5.64 million doses of Covishield Covid-19 vaccine have been administered in Bangladesh, all of which have been developed by the Serum Institute of India. They used the Oxford, AstraZeneca vaccine formula. Vaccination has been opened up only for people above the age of 40. However, there are other categories under which people under the age of 40 can also get a vaccine. I was within that lucky category. As a teacher at a public university, I was allowed to complete my vaccine registration at surokkha.gov.bd, the official vaccine registration portal, on 6^th April 2021, and I finally got my first dose on Sunday 11^th April. I chose Midfort Hospital in Puran Dhaka as my vaccination point. With much preparation, I reached the vaccination center at 1 pm. There were almost no crowd. Some of the people waiting there were waiting for their second dose. Lucky them!

Let me come straight to the point. I was vaccinated within 30 minutes after my arrival at the center, and yes, I started having some side-effects from my vaccine from the evening of Sunday. The side-effects included severe headache, fatigue, sleeplessness, muscular pain, mild fever and loss of appetite.

The Vaccine Side-Effects I Experienced

• Headache: I am officially married to migraine, and she visits me every now and then! So, headache is nothing new to me, especially in its chronic form. But, the headache I experienced from Sunday evening till Tuesday noon was very different. The pain in my head was always there; it felt that a foreign object has been forced into my brain and it’s stuck there. The pain got slightly low when I took bath.
• Fatigue: I felt for the entire period from Sunday afternoon to Tuesday morning that I am all drained up and I have no energy left. I sort of felt like a zombie! On one occasion, I was lying in bed for a couple of hours and when I tried to approach the washroom, I kind of blacked out. Also, I had no energy left to concentrate on anything – any kind of work. I cancelled classes, couldn’t concentrate on writing, and didn’t know how to keep looking on my laptop screen.
• Sleeplessness: Exhaustion usually makes people feel sleepy. That didn’t happen during the period of time. I could barely sleep at night for the two days in question. Sleeplessness is nothing new to me. Being an insomniac and all, I am habituated with sleep deprivation. However, fatigue and sleep deprivation are a deadly combination!
• Muscular pain: Let me tell you this – I am NOT a Trypanophobe, I don’t have any fear of needles. The vaccine injection went pretty smooth. The nurse was done with giving me a shot of the vial before I could realize anything! But the pain at the point of the injection remained and it spread throughout the muscle of my left arm. The pain remained till Tuesday morning.
• Loss of appetite: I lost the sense of hunger and couldn’t eat well. This remained for two days.
• Mild fever: Lastly, my body temperature rose to several degrees above the normal range following the vaccination experience.

Why you shouldn’t be worried about vaccine side-effects

Even though I had all those side-effects, I feel lucky that I got my first dose of the vaccine. My second and final dose is due in two months. Now let me tell you why you shouldn’t worry about Covid-19 vaccine side-effects.

First of all, you have to understand the science. Vaccines of any disease are made from the RNA of the virus of that disease. As we all know, coronavirus contains spikes around the outer layer of the virus. Vaccines are modified versions of the virus RNA itself. That means, the spikes on the outer layer of the virus are modified and transformed into harmless entities. As a result, once injected into your body, they cannot reproduce as quickly as the normal viruses.

Secondly, when covid-19 vaccine is injected into your body, the modified virus RNA fights with the white cells in your blood. This fight is the natural response of your immune system when an alien intruder enters into your body. Your immune system keeps fighting against the injected virus RNA until it develops immunity against it. This way, if you contact the actual virus, you are less likely to develop any symptom as your antibody system already has some memory of the virus it received through the vaccine.

Finally, this is how my vaccine experience went on! Even though I had some vaccine side-effects, I am happy about the experience. I know for a fact that suffering for two days from these side-effects is much better an option than spending a couple of weeks inside the ICU or even dying.

One more thing, it is important to understand that vaccines do not make you immune to the virus. Even two weeks after your second dose of Covishield when you have 76% vaccine efficacy, you might still contact the virus. But you would be way less likely to develop any serious symptom in this case. And you wouldn’t most probably need to be hospitalized.