I’m glad to see some other forum members offering you advice. I think the best thing to do would be to consult with your physicians, particularly your rheumatologist, since they would be most familiar with your medical situation and medical history and hopefully up on the latest news on dealing with patients with immune/autoimmune problems and be able to best integrate the latest vaccine protection information with knowledge of your medical situation.
One of my sisters has MS - but is not on methotrexate. She had a significant reaction to her first Moderna shot and lamented all of her friends (many of whom have MS, too, from her joining local social groups of MS patients) all had the Pfizer and had no significant reactions to both shots of the Pfizer. Yet she values the protective effect of the vaccine, both doses, and has declared she’s going to be sure to get her 2nd dose, too, but confided that she thinks she’ll take a Benadryl before the 2nd dose but will be off any NSAIDs, etc.
So I think it’s just like which HA’s are best. There are trends and preferences but we’re all individuals medically. Advice is best from those attuned to your precise medical situation and history. But just like HA’s, there’s no guarantee either that even tailored advice is always going to turn out the way you want. But maybe like my sister is aiming for, more guarantee on surviving, especially with variants continuing to pop up, means enduring discomfort, maybe even some pain, might be well worth the extra protection one hopes to get from the 2nd shot.
The billions of people in third world underdeveloped countries, if left unprotected, are going to be a breeding ground for the virus to evolve on into the future. So the worst possible case is that the world goes into perpetual pandemic mode and booster shots might need to be coming along and advisable every few years to better one’s chances to staying on the planet, unfortunately. We are getting schooled in biology firsthand. The bigger the world’s population the more chance for something very unlikely to pop up. In probability, it’s called EXPECTED NUMBERS.
World’s population goes to 10 billion.
Only 1 chance in 10 billion per year per “bioreactor” (person) for a terrible biohazard to arise each year.
10 billion people x 1/10 billion chance per person per year = 1 nasty biohazard arising per year.
If you make the chance even rarer, 1/100 billion, the bad stuff still likely to happen once every 10 years, etc., (1 in a trillion, every 100 years). So in a world with a very large relatively well-connected population via air travel, etc., it’s a different world as far as disease goes than it was a 100 years ago, especially with the human population as a breeding ground growing ever larger.
P.S.
On Spaceship Earth, the best chance of squelching things like the pandemic is for folks not only to think of themselves but also of others, e.g., do we also work to vaccinate poor people in other countries (expensive!) or do we just relax comfy that we protected ourselves (for now)??? When the next (even more lethal?) variant comes along, we may regret that we didn’t think more about protecting everyone to avoid a boomerang effect if the virus comes back to haunt us in an even worse form. So now, even if one is a 20-something unlikely to get a serious case of COVID, getting vaccinated to avoid being a bioreactor and further spreading the disease to others is a way, down the line, to also act in one’s best long-term interests. (Same for wearing a mask after being vaccinated if you’re basically protected against serious infection but still can asymptomatically transmit virus to others). Maybe lots of times acting in the best interests of others is also acting in your own best interests for long-term survival. Maybe modern humans survived and supplanted Neanderthals because we were more effective in acting as an organized group whereas Neanderthals were every man and woman and child for themselves (not specifically true - but have read that primitive humans formed much larger social groups compared to Neanderthals).
*AND: (apropos of original question posed)
1 dose of Moderna, Pfizer vaccines effective against COVID-19. ‘Get the second dose,’ experts say. (yahoo.com)
Schaffner stresses that people shouldn’t look at these findings and assume they don’t need a second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. “Don’t try to slice this salami too thin,” he says. “I do think we need that second dose in order to get maximum protection.” Schaffner points out that people get “much more antibodies” against SARS-CoV-2 with the second dose, as well as “more complete protection” that can help against variants of the virus.
Dr. Thomas Russo, professor and chief of infectious disease at the University at Buffalo in New York, agrees. “I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to get the second dose,” he tells Yahoo Life. Russo points out that some people are nervous about getting the second dose after hearing that side effects can be worse afterward, but he says that many stories about the side effects have “a little bit of embellishment.”
Biden Pushes Mask Mandate as C.D.C. Director Warns of ‘Impending Doom’ - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
