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Pneumonia Shot

post #1 of 12
1/27/11 at 10:41am
Thread Starter 
Just wondering if anyone else has had this shot. I had it on Tuesday. The nurse said I would know by dark if I was going to have a reaction. It was fine by dark, but yesterday was a different story. By bedtime last night, it was fiery red at the site of the injection and my arm is so sore I can hardly lift it. It is sore all the way to my fingers. Anyone else had this problem. By the way, it is less red today and not swollen, just sore.
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post #2 of 12
1/27/11 at 1:14pm
I have had this shot and never had any problems. IMO it doesn't seem normal for your arm to be that sore. Please call your doctor's office and let them know about it.
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post #3 of 12
1/27/11 at 3:27pm
It sounds like you are having some kind of an allergic reaction to the shot. You should really call your doctor just incase.
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post #4 of 12
1/27/11 at 4:30pm
I've had it. Most vaccinations never bother me. Sometimes I get a sore arm, but not often.

Just apply ice to the area and take some Tylenol for the pain. The shot goes into the muscle, and it can cause a muscle ache.

If it starts to get really red, warm to touch, pussy looking discharge or you develop a fever....go see your doctor. Otherwise there is likely nothing to worry about.
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post #5 of 12
1/28/11 at 11:14am
Thread Starter 
My arm is finally beginning to feel better. Thanks for all the answers.
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post #6 of 12
3/13/11 at 2:05pm
Thread Starter 
I bumped up my old thread to say, it was the end of January when I had this pneumonia shot. This is March and my arm is still sore from it. I did call my doctor. They said just try to exercise the arm. So this has been at least five weeks since I had this shot. Has anyone else heard of it making an arm sore for this long. I wanted to get a shingles shot, but am delaying it because I don't want a shot in my right arm and my left one is still sore.
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post #7 of 12
3/13/11 at 4:16pm
Never heard of a reaction lasting this long.

Try what they said, and do stretches etc. Could be that you have favoured the arm and caused some muscle atrophy to occur.
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post #8 of 12
3/13/11 at 4:32pm
Sounds like it could be nerve damage. With all the shots given daily in just the US alone, there are sure to be some where the nurse (typically who gets stuck administering them) didn't do it right and managed to hit a nerve. Swelling from the initial vac could cause damage, too. If no one believes me, look it up. There are a lot of complaints for lasting pain at injection sites.

I don't know what to tell you. I think you just have to hope the nerves eventually heal. That can take time due to age and the fact that nerves heal slowly to begin with.
If you think you could possibly have any mineral or vitamin deficiencies, get that checked out as they can hinder healing.

If you can afford an MRI (and really who can?) you may want to make sure, just in case, that there isn't any muscle damage or issues with the shoulder itself caused by that shot.
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post #9 of 12
3/13/11 at 6:27pm
Five weeks with a sore arm sounds like an extraordinary long duration for a reaction to pneumonia vaccine. If your doctor thinks all is well can you try a warm compress several times a day, perhaps with a warm Epsom salt solution. There was an earlier suggestion for Tylenol - did that help?

About the shingles vaccine - stupidly it is recommended by government but not covered by Medicare. Insurance usually does not provide coverage either.

There's a work-around. If your doctor gives you a prescription you can get the vaccine at a pharmacy. Please note that it is frozen, comes in a large styrofoam box with small cavity to keep it insulated and frozen. So when the pharmacist calls to say it has arrived you go pick it up and bring it straight to your doctor / clinic and a nurse can administer it. I have heard that not in all states but in Pennsylvania, for example, the pharmacist can administer it.

The strange thing is that as a prescription the vaccine IS covered and the charge for a nurse to administer it is modest.

Keep in mind that if you had German measles as a child or shingles as an adult you should not get the shingles vaccine.

Edit to correct - chicken pox, not German measles. Dang, those childhood diseases, herd immunity, vaccines - so much to keep track of when I'd rather be playing with my kitties.
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post #10 of 12
3/13/11 at 6:37pm
You called the doctor and he just said to exercise your arm, but did he actually see your arm? If not you should make an appointment, 5 weeks is a very long time!
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post #11 of 12
3/13/11 at 6:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Catapault View Post
About the shingles vaccine - stupidly it is recommended by government but not covered by Medicare. Insurance usually does not provide coverage either.



Keep in mind that if you had German measles as a child or shingles as an adult you should not get the shingles vaccine.
This "shingles vaccine" is just a money making gimic.

Shingles itself is not contagious to anyone who has ever had "Chicken Pox".

The way Chicken Pox works is that after it has gone away, the virus lays dormant in the base of the spine. You can not get chicken pox every again, after having had it.

However, later in life it is possible for the virus to "reactivate" itself and display itself as "shingles." The reactivation has nothing to do with coming into contact with anyone who has chicken pox or has shingles. It is largely due to stress and compromised immune systems.

If you have had chicken pox and come into contact with someone who has shingles, you cannot get either chicken pox or shingles.

If you have never had chicken pox and come into contact with someone who has chicken pox or shingles, you can get chicken pox. But you will not get "shingles" because shingles is the result of the dormant gene that is left after having had chicken pox.

We've had people ask us at work if they should get the shingles vaccine. We tell everyone "no" for the reasons I listed above: Shingles is not contagious to someone who has had chicken pox.
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post #12 of 12
3/13/11 at 7:21pm
The shingles vac can reduce the chances of the virus reactivating or if it does, being as severe. It does this through boosting one's immune system to help keep the virus in check. It's not created for preventing shingles in individuals who do not have the virus.
Considering that shingles can reactivate and affect the eyes and thus vision (aside from causing horrible pain), I don't think it's something to dismiss if one feels secure getting the vaccine (or any vac) in the first place.

The problem is that most children for the last 16 years have been vaccinated against chicken pox, thus less children are getting it. This removes the natural immunity booster that adults would receive from their contact with them (really, this was already covered in an IMO thread a couple years ago). That's created a problem that the shingles vac is for. Eventually as all of us naturally infected people die off it won't be as much of an issue.

Just a couple links with info:
Scroll down nearly to the middle http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2563790/

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/s....htm#171243223


So it's not a gimmick so much as a problem created by trying to prevent childhood chicken pox infection in the first place.
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