Today, I’m trying to fast all day, ending tomorrow after a workout at 36 hours.
They have a covid-19 clinic tonight, where I can get a booster. I’ll get the booster around 7-8pm.
I am going to get a booster, but should I ditch the idea of fasting and eat OMAD instead)?
(And I have debated getting a booster at all, but considering my age and pre-existing condition, I think a booster is warranted.)
Why, does it the booster have anything to do with fasting?
I know nothing and I am curious as usual. Maybe it’s individual?
It’s just this happens to be the only day I have this week to fast. This also happens to be the day when there’s a covid clinic at a local school. They happen to align.
But there was a sense, early in the covid pandemic, that fasting was bad for the immune system. And I have gotten minor side effects (slightly tired, red rash around injection site) from the original shot and 2 boosters.
Am I asking for more side effects by fasting the day of a shot? Will I have a lowered immune system?
Though maybe I’m mistaken:
I still am not knowledgeable of course but I really expect my good immune system not to get SUDDENLY SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE just because I skipped a meal or two… It would make no sense to me, personally…
But I can imagine it may happen under certain conditions.
As you are going to inject yourself with a pathogen to train your immune system it is a good idea not to burden your immune system with eating food at the same time.
When you are unintentionally infected your body does the same, you feel sick and no hunger at all.
Jm2c
These are good questions, and I doubt anyone knows the answers. Why not try to fast, but be ready to eat if it proves necessary? Your cholesterol is good, so your immune system ought to be in good shape. Also, a lot of the impressions researchers had at the beginning of the pandemic have been modified in the light of additional data, so there might be more recent studies to look at.
Bob, especially with it just being a booster, how much are you going to be changing, internally? I would think exceedingly little, and that fasting or not either doesn’t matter or matters too little to be concerned about.
Unless something has changed (maybe it has), there’s no such thing as a “booster” only the same vaccines over and over again, if I remember right with Moderna they’d half dose you, but same vaccine. As far as I know it’s also still they haven’t updated them so all of them are just vaccinating you against COVID strains that essentially don’t even exist anymore. @ctviggen, Have you considered just getting your antibodies checked rather than put your immune system through more? That was a big thing last year with all the biohackers and nobody seemed to really have a decline.
It depends - both Pfizer and Moderna have boosters that are different from the original shots, in that the boosters are formulated to protect against the Omicron variants of Covid, while the earlier ones were not.
For Moderna boosters, the dosage is half of the original. Moderately/severely immunocompromized people can get an additional dose. They also may be able to get Evusheld (monoclonal antibody) every 6 months to protect against getting Covid in the first place.
When I had my most recent booster (an updated shot targeted towards more recent Covid variants), I experienced zero side effects. Not even a sore arm this time.
What I ended up doing was eating. I got the Moderna shot then went home and got a bit queasy, so I ate. Unfortunately, it was really late, 7:30pm, and then I had to go pick up my daughter at 9pm. I ended up eating too late, which then interfered with my sleep. This has always been my problem with OMAD – I need to eat earlier if I do OMAD.
Also, I’m getting over a cold that went into my lungs. I’ve had a cough/cold for over 3 weeks now. (I thought us low carbers were supposed to be bulletproof, but this is the third time I’ve been sick in a few months. Gah! None of them were that bad, but still…) Anyway, that alone could have caused me to eat.
As for whether the shot is worth it, I’ve been listening to This Week in Virology for well over a year now, and the answer is…it’s unclear. Someone said above to get your antibodies tested, but these are meaningless on a per-person basis. On a population basis, they do provide some evidence of benefit, but even there, it’s not possible to know how much. The human immune system is so complex, with B cells, T cells, even “cholesterol”, that it’s hard to know what to use as a metric of benefit.
And I found out that I have genetics such that even if I get covid, I might get it to a very low level.
But I also have heart failure. I’ve had it for 10 years, but this year was the first year my ejection fraction (a measure of how much your heart pumps out) went down. Now, I think I MIGHT have had covid, but none of my many rapid tests came up positive. (If my genetics theory is correct, that might explain why – I could get covid but at a low level.) If I had covid, that could explain reduced output. The problem is that it can take a loooong time to get over covid, and there are very few (only one I could find) studies of people with my condition getting covid. And it wasn’t good.
And I cannot find a test that tells me whether I’ve had covid, as once you get vaccinated, you have antibodies.
For me, at my age, and with my preexisting condition, I thought the booster was a worthwhile option.
I did get a slight pain in my shoulder last night, though I did my “long” body weight workout this morning and feel fine.
I selected the Moderna booster because it has slightly more of the original RNA and RNA designed for Omicron than does the Pfizer booster. It provides more antibodies in testing, though again whether that’s worthwhile or not is up in the air.
Some interesting thoughts, there. Thanks for sharing them, as well as your experience. I can sympathise with your heart symptoms, since I had it back in early February and am only now finally returning to full normal (my normal, at any rate). It sure takes a while, so hang in there!