People have reported side effects, like fatigue, chills, headaches or muscle aches following their COVID-19 vaccination.

What You Need To Know

  • In a CDC study, women were found to get side effects from COVID-19 vaccines more than men
  • Age does play a factor
  • Doctors say older people tend to experience more symptoms than younger ones
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The second dose can have more side effects because the body recognizes a threat and knows how to respond

Others have experienced only arm pain where the shot was given, or had no symptoms.

"There's differences between men, women and difference immunity in general; whether you're an immunity competent individual or immunity compromised," said Dr. Mario Beccari, clinical assistant professor at D'Youville School of Pharmacy.

So why do people get these side effects from the COVID vaccine, especially after the second dose?

Dr. Beccari says those symptoms show your immune system is ready to fight the virus.

"The first dose allows our body to see and process the foreign pathogen. The second dose shows our body how to respond if the foreign pathogen were to invade us later on," he explained.

But if you don't have symptoms, Dr. Beccari adds don't suspect that the vaccine didn't work.

A CDC program called Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) found that women experienced more symptoms post-COVID vaccine, than men.

"Women's immune systems seem to be more robust than men's. Autoimmune disease are more common in women than in men," said Dr. Brian Murray, chief medical officer ECMC.

Dr. Murray explains men have been found to be more receptive to COVID-19.

For women, he adds, side effects are not necessarily a bad thing.

"It actually suggest [women] are having a better immune response and might be developing better immunity than men," he added.

Age does play a role. Doctors say older people tend to experience more symptoms than younger ones, regardless of the source. Blame the aging the process on this one.

Otherwise, the experts say these side effects will go away in a day or so. Take a pain reliever if your arm hurts, and get some R&R, if you need, too.