ow. ow. ow.

[fox]

I am participating in a vaccine trial - and I get to feel extra-virtuous because when I signed up I thought I was really only doing it for science, but it turns out that over the course of the study they're going to give me three hundred and eighty bucks.  I got the first ten in today's mail, in fact.

But I'll tell you what -- it's worth more than ten bucks, the way my arm feels right now.  Not quite as bad as a tetanus shot, but close.  This is some kind of muscle ache, y'all.  This is four-advil pain, and I'm about to put the bean-bag thinger in the microwave and strap it to my shoulder.

I asked them to give me the shot in my left arm, because I'm right-handed, and they said the protocol actually requires them to give the injection in the non-dominant arm.  And now, I'm glad.


In other news, I won the eBay auction for the IKEA lamps they're out of at the store, and I conquered the toes-up cast-on and the toe of my first sock is almost done.

Comments

[mearagrrl.livejournal.com]

Yay participating in a trial! And vaccines! Cause, that's what I used to work on! Vaccine trials! Do they have you filling out a diary about your pain and/or fever, etc? Sorry about the pain. If you have to get more shots, it's often better after teh first time.

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

They do have me filling out a diary about my pain and/or fever etc. I'm to note other symptoms, as well, and I'm not sure how to write up the fact that I woke up twice in the middle of the night (which is, while not unheard-of, not at all normal for me; as you must remember from our housemate days, I tend to sleep like the dead), and at least one of those times, I couldn't read the clock -- I mean I could see the shapes, but I couldn't understand that they were numbers, much less work out what the numbers meant. (That may be a result of not actually being very much awake, I suppose.) The second part, I can call "confusion", but the first? I fell right back to sleep both times, it's just that what's unusual is having been awake at all.

It still hurts this morning, but even twenty minutes after I originally posted it was a little better. At the moment I don't think I have a full range of motion with that arm, but at least I've got all the range I need.

[mearagrrl.livejournal.com]

I'm sure there's a word for the waking-up, they'll figure it out. Glad you're at least feeling a little better!

[reginagiraffe]

Ooooo! That's what I do for a living!

*is all curious*

What pathogen? What institute is doing it? Details, woman! *g*

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

Herpes!

And, oh, they gave me a flier, and I did in fact listen for the whole recruitment interview, but who remembers details. :-P I think it's a national trial, but my particular participation is through the University of Maryland (medical school in Baltimore, but they're coming down here to CP because of the crop of potential volunteers). Uhm, what other details do I remember. No chance of contracting herpes from the vaccine, which, yay. (I know just enough about how vaccines work to know that some vaccines do cause the thing -- I don't get flu shots, for example, because in the past I've gotten the flu when I've had them and not when I haven't -- and some don't, but not why, but I believe them.) The control is the Hepatitis A vaccine. ... that's about it. :-)

[reginagiraffe]

Um, no, you can't get the flu from the vaccine. They use *killed* virus. The problem is that they can only put three strains in any year's vaccine and there's more than three strains out there in any given year. They just pick the three that are likely to be the most prevalent. Sometimes they guess wrong (they have to choose before it's entirely clear which ones will be most prevalent due to the time it takes to produce the vaccines) and sometimes you catch one of the less common strains. But the vaccine itself does *not* cause disease. This is actually a major pet peeve of mine so I would appreciate it if you would stop perpetuating this myth.

(Caveat: The new flu mist vaccine uses weakened virus, not killed virus, so it's not suitable for people with a weakened immune system because it *could* possibly cause disease.)

And huh, that's where I work (UMAB). Is it with the Center for Vaccine Development? Or the Insitute for Human Virology?

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

I will stop perpetuating the myth, then. Are all vaccines killed-virus now? I was sure some were still low-dose ones. What I do know is that in years when I've had flu shots, I've gotten the flu, and in years when I haven't had flu shots, I have not gotten the flu. I'm fine with that not being a causative relationship, but the correlation is unmistakable.

I don't know off-hand which center or institute or what the trial is associated with. :-( Sorry.

[mearagrrl.livejournal.com]

Oh, hey, one of my drag king friends is working on that trial at UMCP! Heh. I was considering doing it, but then am moving, so couldn't. I figured hey, free Hep A vaccine...

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

I'm confident I met that person when I went in last week to schedule my appointment. I thought she read kind of high on the Kinsey scale, and then she mentioned something about her girlfriend, and I thought, hey, so the 'dar isn't completely one-sided after all. (Not -- and we know how I feel about stereotypes, but this is just true -- not that the 'dar was strictly necessary in this particular instance. [g])

[mearagrrl.livejournal.com]

Heh. Yeha, sounds like you met her. She's a sweetheart, I like her a lot.