A Boston doctor who used EpiPen himself after having his first known allergic reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine from Moderna talks about his experience.
Minutes after receiving the first dose of vaccine on Thursday, Dr. Hossein Sadrzadeh of Boston Medical Center said his heart began to flow. He initially thought it was anxiety, he said, but then he felt his tongue and throat tingle and began to numb.
“My blood pressure has really dropped, so that’s when I knew it was an anaphylactic shock,” Sadrzadeh told NBC10 Boston and NECN. “My heart rate has increased, sweating, so my blood pressure is really low. I’ve had this before, so I had EpiPen and I took it.”
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Sadrzadeh, who has a severe allergy to shellfish, was taken to the emergency room after receiving a shot containing the vaccine from the Cambridge-based company. He felt normal again by Friday, he said.
Sadrzadeh is the first person to have a known allergic reaction to the Moderna coronavirus vaccine, according to The New York Times. However, it is known that other vaccines used now cause allergic reactions in rare cases. More than 35,000 people have been vaccinated in Massachusetts since Tuesday, according to the state’s new dashboard.
Sadrzadeh hopes his story will raise awareness of the vaccine’s potential to induce anaphylaxis among both drug companies and anyone with a history of allergies.
“I think people need to be vaccinated,” Sadrzadeh said. “At the same time, I would really like Moderna and also Pfizer to investigate this further to prevent things from happening.
US health officials say both Moderna and Pfizer coronavirus vaccines are safe, and medical experts agree that allergic reactions to vaccines are rare, but can sometimes happen.
Thousands of additional doses of Moderna coronavirus vaccine began arriving in Massachusetts on Tuesday.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends: “If you have ever had a severe allergic reaction to any ingredient in a COVID-19 vaccine … you should not receive that specific vaccine. If you have had a severe allergic reaction to other vaccines or injectable therapies, you should ask your doctor if you should get a COVID-19 vaccine. Your doctor will help you decide if it is safe to get vaccinated. “
Just over one million people in the United States had received the first dose of coronavirus vaccine since Wednesday morning, according to the CDC, and only a handful of reactions to it qualified as anaphylaxis, a severe and life-threatening allergic reaction.
British officials are investigating reports that two people who received the Pfizer vaccine had allergic reactions. Medical experts say that although the reactions are rare, they are not unheard of for vaccines of any kind and are usually short-lived.
It is not clear why some people experience allergic reactions after receiving blows. Fatigue, headaches and muscle aches have been observed to be the most common side effects of the Moderna vaccine, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
A study led by a team from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases examines why some people have had severe allergic reactions and expects to include several hundred people who have a history of severe allergic reactions.
Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine began arriving in Massachusetts on Tuesday as part of a shipment of more than 116,000 doses. Delivery was added to 59,475 doses from Pfizer that were distributed in the state in the first week of arrival. Of these, Boston Medical Center received its first shipment of 75,000 doses of Moderna vaccine in addition to the 2,000 doses from Pfizer, which it has already begun administering to staff and patients.