As Australians once again roll up their sleeves for a third COVID-19 shot, experts say improving your health in the lead-up won’t hurt and may help reduce some side effects.
Feeling the effects of your COVID-19 booster shot? You’re certainly not alone. And according to Dr Daryl Cheng, the medical lead at the“We do know that if you mix and match – say you had AZ first, and then you have Pfizer as a booster you’re going to get a slightly increased side effect profile compared to if you had three Pfizers for example,” Cheng explains. “That’s what we would expect – sore arm, headache, a bit of lethargy.
But is there anything you can do to minimise the risk of and intensity of side effects? Well, the answer is the same as it was for the double dose.“We expect to see side effects and that is because the immune system is recognising that the vaccine is a foreign body and therefore mounting a response to it,” Cheng explains.
“We expect that we get more side effects from AstraZeneca than Pfizer in the first dose, and vice versa in the second [dose],” Cheng says, explaining that one reason for this is the type of vaccine and its structure.“We see that older people tend to get a stronger response with the Pfizer and younger people tend to get one from the AstraZeneca and we don’t quite know why, apart from thinking the immune system is stimulated in different ways.
For those of us waiting to get a jab, booster or otherwise, improving our health in the lead-up won’t hurt.
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