If someone suffers from a headache or feels a little under the weather after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, it becomes common to hear them say something like “Oh, it just means my immune system is really working hard.” On the other hand, when people do not notice side effects, they sometimes worry that the blow is not doing its job or the immune system is not reacting at all.
Is there a connection between what you can see after a vaccine and what happens at the cellular level in your body? Here’s what you need to know.
What does your body do when you receive a vaccine?
Your immune system responds to the foreign molecules that make up any vaccine through two different systems.
The initial response is due to what is called an innate immune response. This system is activated as soon as your cells notice that you have been exposed to any foreign material, from a chip to a virus. Its purpose is to eliminate the invader. White blood cells called neutrophils and macrophages move to the intruder and work to destroy him.
This first line of defense is relatively short, lasting hours or days.
The second line of defense takes a few days to weeks to start and run. This is the long-term adaptive immune response. It is based on T and B cells of the immune system that learn to recognize certain invaders, such as a coronavirus protein. If the invader is encountered again, months or even years in the future, these immune cells will recognize the old enemy and begin to generate antibodies that will bring him down.
In the case of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, it takes about two weeks to develop an adaptive response that provides long-term protection against the virus.
When you receive the vaccine, what you notice in the first or two days is part of the innate immune response: the inflammatory reaction of the body, which aims at the rapid cleansing of foreign molecules that have violated the perimeter of the body.
It varies from person to person, but how dramatic the initial response is does not necessarily refer to the long-term response. In the case of the two COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, over 90% of immunized individuals developed the protective protective immune response, while less than 50% developed side effects and most were mild.
You may never know how strongly the body’s adaptive immune response adapts.
What are the possible side effects?
Side effects are normal responses to the injection of a foreign substance. These include things like fever, muscle aches and discomfort at the injection site and are mediated by the innate immune response.
Neutrophils or macrophages in your body observe vaccine molecules and produce cytokines – molecular signals that cause fever, chills, fatigue and muscle aches. Doctors expect this cytokine reaction to happen every time a foreign substance is injected into the body.
In studies in which neither recipients nor researchers knew which people received the mRNA vaccine or a placebo, about half of people between the ages of 16 and 55 who received a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine developed a headache after the second dose. This reaction may refer to the vaccine – but a quarter of people who received only a placebo also developed a headache. So, in the case of very common symptoms, it can be quite difficult to attribute them to the vaccine with certainty.
Researchers anticipate some reports of side effects. Adverse events, on the other hand, are things that doctors do not expect to happen as a result of the vaccine. These would include organ failure or severe damage to any part of the body.
The blood clots that caused the US to stop distributing Johnson & Johnson vaccine are a very rare event, apparently with a frequency of one million. Whether they are certainly caused by the vaccine is still under investigation – but if scientists conclude that they are, blood clots would be an extremely rare side effect.
Which component of the shot causes side effects?
The only “active ingredient” in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are instructions for mRNAs that tell the recipient’s cells to build a viral protein. But photos have other components that help mRNA move inside the body.
To get the mRNA of the vaccine in the cells of the vaccinated person where he can do his job, he must evade the enzymes in the body that would naturally destroy him. The researchers protected the mRNA in the vaccine by wrapping it in a lipid balloon that helps prevent it from being destroyed. Other ingredients in the photos – such as polyethylene glycol, which is part of this lipid sachet – may cause allergic responses.
If I feel bad after the shooting, does that signal strong immunity?
Scientists have not identified any relationship between the initial inflammatory reaction and the long-term response that leads to protection. There is no scientific evidence that someone with more obvious side effects from the vaccine is better protected from COVID-19. And there’s no reason why an exaggerated innate response would make your adaptive response better.
Both authorized mRNA vaccines offered protective immunity to over 90% of recipients, but less than 50% reported any reaction to the vaccine and far fewer had severe reactions.
The bottom line is that you can’t assess how well the vaccine works in your body based on what you can detect from the outside. Different people have stronger or weaker immune responses to a vaccine, but post-shot side effects will not tell you who you are. It is the second adaptive immune response that helps your body gain immunity to the vaccine, not the inflammatory response that triggers those pains and early pains.
This article is republished from Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.