•  Researchers at the CDC say women tend to possess stronger side effects to COVID-19 vaccines than men.
  • Experts say this isn’t unusual with vaccinations because the estrogen in women’s bodies is meant to elicit a stronger immune reaction.
  • They add that ladies still shouldn’t hesitate to urge the COVID-19 vaccine because the potential consequences of the disease are far worse than the vaccination side effects.
  • Frontline workers Shelly and Scott Blomgren were among the primary people within us tourge the COVID-19 vaccine in January.
The afternoon after their second shot of the Moderna vaccine, it had been clear to Shelly that their reactions to the vaccine were remarkably different.

“He was fine,” she told Healthline. “Me? I used to be dying. I’m a troublesome cookie. I can take the pain. But this was awful.”

Blomgren said she struggled for nearly 2 days with “the worst body aches I’ve had in my life,” along with side chills, fever, and exhaustion, while her husband went on together with his work and life with just a couple of chills.

Two days later, they were both fine and fully vaccinated.

What the Blomgren’s experienced is seemingly repeating itself in many homes across the state.

A reportTrusted Source released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that of the primary 13.8 million COVID-19 vaccine doses given to Americans, reports of side effects were coming at a better rate from females.

79 percent of side effects reported came from women, although only 61 percent of the vaccines got to women.

A common occurrence
The study results aren’t concerning to communicable disease experts.

This means that a stronger response from women to other vaccinations has been seen for years.

The reason?

Experts suspect that in women, particularly premenopausal women, the amount of estrogen help activate the immune reaction to illness and, therefore, to vaccines.

Men, on the opposite hand, have more testosterone, a hormone that will somewhat dampen or hamper an equivalent response.

Simply put, women generally have a stronger response to vaccines because their bodies are quicker and stronger when it involves activating what the vaccine introduces within the body.

“Infectious diseases generally are always about the immune reaction and not the bug,” said Dr. Larry Schlesinger, president, and chief military officer of the Texas Biomedical Research Institute in San Antonio.

“In women, there's an exuberant and stronger response [to many vaccines],” he told Healthline. “There’s tons of science behind this.”

In the past, Schlesinger said, a stronger response in females has been seen and studied in vaccines for yellow jack, DPT, influenza, and other illnesses.

Schlesinger said estrogen encourages the body to supply more T-cells, the reactor cells that protect us when a vaccine is introduced.

Thus, he said, we see the quicker and stronger response many ladies experiences.

Dealing with the reaction
The challenge now's to share this information while not raising concerns or reasons to avoid the COVID-19 vaccine, experts say.

Dr. William Schaffner, a communicable disease expert, and professor within the division of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University School of drugs in Tennessee told Healthline that this is often “an understudied phenomenon” that’s been noticed for years.

He urges women to know that a stronger response and temporary symptoms aren't a reason to show the vaccine away.

“COVID-19 is bad and it'll put women into the ICU even as it does men,” Schaffner said.

Side effects to the vaccine, he added, “are transient and mostly gone in 24 hours.”

Schlesinger said that for several women, the vaccine may be a “two-edged sword.”

On one side you've got evidence that ladies get a strong antibody response thereto, which, he said, “with COVID is strictly what we would like .”

On the opposite side, he said, is that the potential for each day approximately of suffering.

Julianne Gee, MPH, a lead author of the study and a medic within the CDC’s Immunization Safety Office, told Healthline that the study, which is a component of the CDC’s ongoing tracking of the vaccines and their impact, shouldn't sway anyone from attempting.

“COVID-19 disease can cause serious complications and even death, and vaccination is a crucial prevention tool to stop disease and complications,” she said. “COVID-19 vaccines will help society return to normal.”

Schaffner agreed.

“Roll up those sleeves,” he said. “[These vaccines] are effective and that we need them for our short-term goals (of getting somewhat back to normal) also as for our long-time protection.”

Blomgren said even with the difference in her reaction compared to her husband, she’d not hesitate to be vaccinated.

“I was never concerned,” she said. “It’s just what I had to travel through to urge to where I'm now, and to assist get us to where we all got to be.”