My NYC Vaccination Experience and Thoughts About Boosters

I was a vaccine holdout — not due to politics, but due to concerns about an eye condition I have called lattice degeneration. Lattice degeneration is a congenital thinning of the retina that leads to holes and tears in the retina. This condition puts me at high risk for a retinal detachment at any time. A retinal detachment is a medical emergency, requiring an immediate visit to the hospital and delicate eye surgery to repair the retina. If it’s not taken care of quickly, it can lead to permanent vision loss.

I was not sure how these vaccines (or actual COVID-19) would affect this condition since there’s little official research about how the COVID vaccines interact with a retina that’s already damaged by disease. My thought was that any micro-clotting caused by the vaccines could affect blood vessels in the retina and cause issues.

I was also concerned about anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction that requires a trip to the ER. I am allergic to lots of stuff: apples, pears, cashews, naproxen (Aleve), aspirin, and many other silly things. So I was inclined to believe I would be allergic to the vaccines.

Throughout the pandemic, I managed to avoid catching COVID-19 by being careful and using high-end masks (a variety of N95 rated masks). But ironically it was a fear of a spontaneous retinal detachment that led me to decide to get vaccinated. I felt that if a retinal detachment were to occur and I was unvaccinated, I would be put into a high-risk situation (hospitalization and emergency eye surgery, where I am sure continuous masking would be impossible) that would almost certainly expose me to COVID-19, and I would have zero natural protection against it. Despite mitigation efforts, hospital-acquired COVID is a real thing.

Not only that, but after months of research I found little or no connection between retinal detachments and the vaccines. There was anecdotal evidence, and Twitter posts from what would always turn out to be an unhinged anti-vax Trump supporter, but nothing certain. Billions of doses of the vaccine had already been administered, and a significant amount of those shots were given to diabetic patients who often suffer a similar degenerative retinal condition called diabetic retinopathy, and I found nothing that showed a connection between the vaccines and any problems for people with this condition either.

Finally, with vaccine mandates locking people out of many areas of society, I feared that perhaps a day would come when people would be turned away from medical facilities if they were still unvaccinated. I can also imagine a time in the future when the vaccines won’t be free of charge anymore.

So for these reasons, I decided to get vaccinated.

My Vaccination

I chose to get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. I often joke that J&J is “the New Yorker vaccine”. It’s popular here because it’s one shot and New Yorkers are lazy. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is even given out in the subway here. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, NYC Department of Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi, NY Governor Kathy Hochul, and members of the New York Yankees are among prominent New Yorkers who all got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

The actual vaccination wasn’t too bad. Sure, I was nervous. I think most people getting the vaccine have to be nervous about it. I mean, if you stop and think about it, it’s all pretty crazy – one day life is normal and suddenly this weird virus shuts down the planet and changes everything. Then along come these vaccines, almost miraculously. In 2019 no one ever thought they’d be taking a vaccine for a deadly supervirus. Yet, here we all are, tens-of-thousands of us every day with our sleeves rolled up, preparing to have a needle slid into our deltoids.

For me the injection was painful – perhaps it was my imagination, but I swear I could feel the vaccine liquid itself going into my arm and spreading – and my arm was sore immediately after. I was vaccinated at 9:30am on a Friday, and during the day I was completely fine. No reaction, no anaphylaxis. Just that sore arm.

That night was a different story. I started to feel strange during the evening and by night time I had trouble sleeping. I managed to fall asleep for about two hours, but then I woke up and my whole body was in pain, especially my knees for some reason. I had a headache and there was kind of a “zappy” feeling, like a bit of electricity, when I moved my head. I got up and checked my temperature out of curiosity, and it was 99.5 degrees (37.5C). My body temperature is normally 97.7 (36.5C), because I’m an extremely cool guy – so that was a pretty good jump upwards.

I couldn’t sleep due to the headache and body aches, and I had an urge to listen to music, something that only happens when I’m drunk. This tells me I must have been delirious. I put in earbuds, listened to some songs on my tablet and finally managed to fall asleep. The next day I was pretty much fine. I still had a sore arm for a few days afterwards, but otherwise I felt great.

Booster Gold

I’m glad I’ve been vaccinated, but I fully understand that vaccines aren’t bulletproof. Pfizer and Moderna claim 95% efficacy under the best conditions, and Johnson & Johnson claims about 70% efficacy. These numbers drop dramatically as time goes on. After 3 months the vaccines are slightly less effective. After 6 months they are about half as effective. This is why each day you can visit any social media site and read anecdotes of vaccinated people getting “breakthrough cases” and testing positive for COVID, some of them with symptoms that are pretty bad.

“Booster shots” have become the hot topic now. People who received vaccines early in 2021 probably have very little protection against COVID-19 at this point. This is likely what’s driving the massive COVID surge in many countries that’s happening at the time of this writing (November 2021). Some countries have record numbers of cases now, hitting their highest numbers ever since the pandemic began.

Some people are complaining about the need for boosters, and wonder how many shots we will need. Politically-motivated anti-vaxxers claim that the vaccines must not work at all since repeated shots are necessary. I would point out that 3-dose vaccines are not unusual, and the Anthrax vaccine is 5 shots with boosters required every few years for those at risk to Anthrax exposure.

As a former vaccine holdout, I can understand the hesitation that many normal people have about getting vaccinated. But as someone who had real health concerns and came through it without any problems, I would like to strongly encourage everyone to get vaccinated. My entire family is vaccinated now. Everyone I know personally is vaccinated. The vaccines may not be perfect, but along with high-grade masking and some common sense precautionary measures, we can get through this current surge and perhaps end the pandemic in 2022.

Are you vaccinated? What was your vaccination experience? Leave a comment below.