Is it normal for your arm to swell after having vaccine shot?

It is normal.
That is just your immune system responding on site to what it thinks is an infection, which means it is a sign of it working.

When did you get the vaccine? For a day or two, maybe. If more than that, go seek medical attention.

That’s a question of degree, and the time frame. You say your arm has been swelling. Do you mean it is still swollen (still as big as it was on day two), or that it’s still swelling now (getting bigger every day)? The latter option seems uncommon and concerning.

A relative had a swollen arm for about a week, and her doctor said it’s connected to her allergies. She got some medication for it. Most people I know only had a sore arm for about 24 hours, but anecdotally, Astra Zeneca vaccines have resulted in more swelling than the Pfizer or Moderna ones in my social circle.

Can you call your doctor? I think I would, if only to soothe my mind.

There are reports of redness and inflammation (covid vaccine arm) but if the inflammation is still growing days after the shot it can also be an infection like cellulitis. That would need antibiotics. An infection would likely hurt a lot and hurt constantly and not only hurt when you move it in certain ways. Any time we break our skin there is risk of infection, although it’s extremely rare from a shot, but it is not impossible.

Most people the arm feels better in a few days. Your muscle just needs time to repair. Ask the doctor if you can take some ibuprofen or acetaminophen if you are in a lot of pain.

They haven’t given Astra Zeneca in our country. Maybe talk to a nurse or medical practitioner in your country. My guess is it’s a possibility.

With Moderna which I got it seems normal that the first shot would cause some swelling. Mine lasted a day. The second shot seems to render people useless for a day. Mine did. I just stayed in bed and binged on a TV crime series. And Coke and Doritos. Went to work the next day.

Not normal. See physician soonest.

@longgone it’s still swollen as it was after the shot. There is no redness, just a lump on the place that hurts when touched.

I can’t contact a doctor right now, but an acquaintance told me she asked a nurse and she was told to just massage the area to distribute the medicine around and it would help. I also should expect this to last for some time. I’m rubbing my arm right now and see what happens.

Is it swollen at the injection site? All over? Or underneath your arm?

Swelling at the injection site and all over is common about 24 hours after getting the vaccine. If it’s lasting longer than that, it might be an allergic reaction. I would speak to your doctor if it’s not subsiding.

Swelling under your arms is probably related to lymph nodes. Also normal.

But, generally speaking, I’d talk to a doctor and not random people on the internet. :)

Mimi…is your entire arm swelling, or is it just at the injection site?

@Dutchess_III @raum It only swell at the injection site. Actually it swells above the injection, and underneath the arm. My parents said they have the swelling too, but they don’t hurt as much as me.

That’s normal.

I’m not clear on if you might be talking about post injection inflammation, an injection nodule, or if it’s your lymph nodes.

I wouldn’t worry about inflammation or lymph nodes, but would follow-up with my healthcare provider about a nodule.

How’s your arm, @Mimishu1995?

cudebunked.

Cudebunked? <Clix on dorktionary tab>. Not in Merry-Webster.
Goes to Google. Google to Bri: “Did you mean debunked?”

If you find out what it means let me know!

I’ll ask @Mimishu1995 if her arm has cudebunked, and then we’ll know!

It’s getting better. It is hurting less now. I think I’m getting there :)

@Mimishu1995

Thanks for the good news.
I’m happy to know that your arm is cudebunking.

Anything can happen. It’s all a great experiment with the lives of people at risk

@omtatsat I’m still alive. And I waited for the vaccine. And also my arm has stopped swelling now.

@Mimishu1995

Has the swelling reached its peak, or has it gone down?

@Brian1946 it reached its peak then went down. It has disappeared now.

They “experimented” long before it was released to the public @omtatsat.

@Dutchess_III Source? All I can find is that they basically started animal testing at the same time they started human trials/wide spread injections. Where was the experimentation before it was released to the public?

Here

Colds are caused by a type of Corona virus. That’s why it’s been around for decades.

Oh come on. The vaccines have been in people’s bodies for 18 months now if we go back to the original phase one trials. Animal testing and phase one overlapped, The very healthy volunteers in phase one testing who are constantly monitored were informed and willing to take the the risk with full knowledge. That was a long time ago. Once that went well phase two and three were done just as any other vaccine would be. Then the vaccine had emergency approval.

Pfizer had a deal with Israel, and a ton of data is collected, and Israel is always slightly ahead of us, so actually millions there were vaccinated before we started in the US. They continue to compile a shit ton of data that the world benefits from along with other countries having their own continued studies and data collection. People have been encouraged from the beginning to fill out VAERS forms for any adverse reactions.

@Dutchess_III You do know that the mRNA technology has been around since 1990 but has never been found to be safe for any application? They “planned” to use it for a number of things including treating some cancers. But it was never used. Why? Because it never passed testing. Too many side effects including long term side effects.
Your citation also points to the VAERS database. Ever look up the Covid vaccines on that website? It shows those vaccines to be, hands-down, the worst vaccines ever made. The number of adverse reactions are massive compared to every other vaccine in the database.
And where in that citation does it say it was experimented before it started being given to humans?

@seawulf575 People don’t usually report side effects. This time they were encouraged to. Most of America never even heard of VAERS reporting before the COVID vaccine.

@JLeslie I understand that. But even with the high results of the adverse effects of the Covid vaccines, they believe that the large majority of minor adverse reactions were never reported. So it isn’t as apples-and-oranges as everyone wants to believe.
Another thought on your statement that also bothers me. If these vaccines were considered safe for humans, why were they treated differently as far as VAERS is concerned? Why were people urged to report adverse reactions?

@seawulf575 People were encouraged to report, because it was a new vaccine being given to millions of people in a short time frame. If something terrible showed up, they of course would want to stop distribution as quickly as possible.

Which adverse effects specifically are you so concerned about in the reporting?

@JLeslie We’ve had new vaccines many times in my life time and several since the creation of the VAERS database. Why was this vaccine treated so differently than those? You said people were urged to report because of the large quantity being given in a short period of time. But there have been vaccines that have been issued to large numbers before and they either (a) were not urged to report side effects or (b) didn’t have as many adverse effects.
So the question remains…why is this vaccine so much different?

@seawulf575 Yes. Play with the immune system and and you play with fire.

@seawulf575 This vaccine is different because almost every vaccine has a unique story coming to market. Vaccines were not always given en masse like this on initial roll outs.

In the past some vaccines were tried on children initially, I doubt we ever do that now.

We get better at ethical standards over time. Now, we have the country at large knowing they can self report side effects, they don’t have to hope their doctor bothers to do it. They could have self reported for many years now, but weren’t as aware.

Other vaccines we had a longer process to market or when introduced into the market still was given to a smaller sized population first. That’s an argument to wait a few months and see how people are doing who received a covid vaccine. Now, it’s over 18 months since people in the initial studies had the first doses, and almost a year from the first several million. Any adult worried about feeling like a guinea pig, that excuse is running out fast. Focusing on how fast it was developed or fast the vaccine went through phases 1,2,3 are becoming moot now. If it had taken 18 months to bring it to market would you have felt better about it? We are at that point now.

Covid has severe effects in much larger numbers than many of the other diseases and spreads like wild fire. We got “lucky” more than one vaccine tested to be safe and effective practically on the first try. Some vaccines didn’t make it to market. Merck’s vaccine didn’t. I don’t know if they ditched it because it was behind the others or because the testing wasn’t going well.

Covid cripples our hospitals, and immunity after having covid is questionable. Many of the other well known contagious diseases the adults alive in the country had made it through and were immune (measles, chicken pox, mumps, pertussis, etc). Or, some of the other diseases we have vaccinated for were not contagious through the air, but rather more difficult routes like through blood, or getting hurt, or unsanitary conditions.

Small pox vaccine had some terrible severe side effects that happened much more often than what we seem to be observing with the covid vaccines (still rare) so don’t go idealizing the past.

@seawulf575…the people made it different. Facebook made it different. Attitudes and whining Nancys made it different. THAT made it different.
That BS aside, it’s the first vaccine in my lifetime that the CDC urged everyone in the world to get. And the conspiracy theorists came out of the woodwork.