Pardon me while I burst into flames

May 12, 2021 12:37 PM

Has anyone experienced short-term depression as a vaccine side effect?

I got Moderna and from day 4-ish to 14-ish after my first shot I felt pretty depressed very suddenly despite previously feeling very excited about life post-vaccine. Now beginning week two after my second dose and feeling very much the same. I'm pretty miserable and would feel better if I knew it was temporary and less guilty about taking it easy and taking time off when I work from home anyhow.

I'm a late 30s menstruating cis female who has a long history with depression and was already in the middle of dealing with my complicated feelings from lockdown/life after lockdown, so I don't think this is some repressed emotions bursting through or anything. If anything, the idea of getting vaccinated had really been a shot in the arm, so to speak. The reason I suspect vaccine and not just run of the mill depression is the way it feels like PMS depression -- that sudden flip of a switch from normal to terribly depressed. I noticed my period was messed up in between doses one and two, and I can usually set a watch to it.

I've read the anecdotes about the vaccine affecting menstrual cycles, and it seems reasonable these things are all tied together -- inflammation, hormones, immune response, mood, etc., but I really haven't found anything about low mood as a side effect (only fatigue), particularly this long after the dose.

I am very pro-science and pro-vaccine, so corroborating my account is not going to lead to me proselytizing against it or anything.

Thank you.

posted by anonymous to Science & Nature (19 answers total)

I am post-menopause and I had what felt terrifyingly like the worst of my PMS mood swings post-Moderna both times, and my partner has had some rough swings that made me ask several times if he was sure the pharmacy properly refilled his antidepressant (including a specific kind of dizzy-nausea we know he gets from missing doses).

I kind of felt overall like nonspecific shit for 2-3 weeks each time in a way that felt like it abruptly got better, and that included feeling fairly low emotionally and pretty fragile. I don't feel like the mechanism was psychological - yes I have lots of complicated feelings and trauma from All This, like everyone else, and vaccination is a weird upheaval...but that all feels very processable and my bad feelings felt like they were just looming unrelated to anything else.

And my gut was a wreck the entire duration, which we know affects serotonin production.
posted by Lyn Never at 12:48 PM on May 12, 2021 [4 favorites]

I don't know if this was technically a "vaccine side effect" but I definitely felt this. The main reason, for me, is that the vaccine was "supposed to" make things better, but in reality, all it did was remind me that nothing is "better" yet. I had my magic shot yet I was still stuck inside, still worrying about friends and family, still unable to go to the gym or otherwise resume Life.

For what it's worth I do not have a history of depression as an adult, though I've been alternately depressed and anxious for the past year.
posted by Tomorrowful at 12:50 PM on May 12, 2021 [8 favorites]

I don't know anything about the COVID vaccine specifically, but I have recently been reading various things about the link between depression and inflammation (e.g. this, this, this, this). Basically, as far as I understand it, the theory is that depression is the result of an overactive response of the immune system, or an overinflammatory response of the body in general (I'm not a scientist, just a layperson interested in this stuff). People with depression have higher rates of allergies, asthma, acne, etc. - other conditions that are also thought to be related to an overactive inflammatory response (the body having an inflammatory response to things that are in fact benign). There's also this study about depression as a response to flu vaccine.
posted by ClaireBear at 12:50 PM on May 12, 2021 [5 favorites]

I got down this rabbit hole initially by listening to this.
posted by ClaireBear at 12:53 PM on May 12, 2021

“Arrival fallacy is this illusion that once we make it, once we attain our goal or reach our destination, we will reach lasting happiness,” said Tal Ben-Shahar, the Harvard-trained positive psychology expert who is credited with coining the term.

Dr. Ben-Shahar said arrival fallacy is the reason some Hollywood stars struggle with mental health issues and substance abuse later in life. “These individuals start out unhappy, but they say to themselves, ‘It’s O.K. because when I make it, then I’ll be happy,’” he said. But then they make it, and while they may feel briefly fulfilled, the feeling doesn’t last. “This time, they’re unhappy, but more than that they’re unhappy without hope,” he explained. “Because before they lived under the illusion — well, the false hope — that once they make it, then they’ll be happy.”
posted by Lanark at 12:56 PM on May 12, 2021 [3 favorites]

Not the vaccine, but I've had long covid for more than a year now, and when I have a physical relapse (exhaustion, virus-like symptoms), my mental health often drops off the shelf too, for one day only. I suddenly feel like every decision I've ever made was the wrong one, and my life is empty and full of suffering. I have a good night's sleep, and bing! The world is fixed again the very next day.

It's been unbelievably enlightening - I've had garden-variety depression before, which takes a long time to arrive and to leave, in a way that makes it feel like it must be caused by Things Being Wrong with my life, that I must slowly and carefully sort out myself if I am to feel better. To discover that the exact same feelings and thoughts can arise overnight from what is very clearly a physical event, and disappear again just as quickly when the physical symptoms resolve, makes me view the regular depression through very different glasses. It seems to be so clearly arising from some physical cause, rather than being a failing of my mentality or life decisions, and if that's the case now, why would it not also be the case for the longer bouts of depression I've had in the past?

So I think you have good reason to be optimistic, especially given that you had this with the first jab and it resolved itself in time. Be gentle with yourself in the meantime. It sucks, but I think you're going to be OK.
posted by penguin pie at 1:11 PM on May 12, 2021 [17 favorites]

Not after the vaccine itself but as COVID is ending in my county I started having massive anxiety attacks and not feeling ready to face the life routine again. Maybe the vaccine represents something like that for you?
posted by St. Peepsburg at 1:28 PM on May 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

I'm perimenopausal with a lifetime history of major depression, and the past month and a half since I got my first vaccine shot has been absolutely brutal in terms of the depression. It's been at the level where I find myself sitting at my desk staring blankly into space wondering whether I'm going to cry or scream, while being completely unable to get anything done and feeling increasingly stressed and anxious. It seemed like things were beginning to ease up a bit yesterday (things had shifted from feeling like there was a black hole behind my sternum to feeling like there was a swarm of bees there, which felt like an improvement), but I got some bad news this morning and the black hole is back.

Also, I was almost 2/3 of the way to "12 months without a period" and am SO mad that this seems to have restarted things.
posted by Lexica at 1:59 PM on May 12, 2021 [4 favorites]

Hi, are you me?

Mid 30s menstruating mostly-cis female. I also got Moderna. No notable effects after first shot. After second shot, day 3-22 and counting have been a fucking miserable slog. Exactly as you say, like the flipping of a switch, where happiness feels impossible and every decision I've ever made is wrong. For me it feels similar to the depression I felt after taking antiobiotics also. Arrival fallacy is real, but this feeling doesn't seem related to anything going on in life. There's nothing I can point to that, if it were fixed, would make me feel better, not even the pandemic as a whole (and that's saying a lot).

Sorry, I don't have any good news yet, but it's mildly reassuring to know I'm not the only one.
posted by danceswithlight at 2:18 PM on May 12, 2021 [4 favorites]

Late 40's menstruating cis-female here. This may not be helpful to you, but I will likely follow this to see what happens after my second dose. Just had my first dose of Moderna 2 days ago, and have not had any drop in mood.

I have been clinically depressed throughout much of my life (mostly teens to 20's, then again hit by profound grief which stuck around from early 30's to mid-40's... but I've focused on contentment rather than happiness, and continually moving slowly forward, living within my means, etc) so I would know if it hit me that way.

In fact, I woke up yesterday feeling really good - and without any allergy symptoms that I'd been having continuously for more than the past year (they were so bad, I thought perhaps I'd had Covid in Dec 2019, and they were long Covid symptoms)... so my first shot has been quite positive so far.

My period arrived yesterday as well, but the timing is perfect - exactly 28 days, as it always used to be (the past few years, I'd occasionally skip a month or they'd be off by a week in either direction)... so again, I can't say that it was a bad thing. It was, however, slightly more uncomfortable than normal - but also, more like when I was younger and healthier anyway... so again, no complaints.

Sorry if this doesn't help, but I thought it would be good to have the mixture of voices.
posted by itsflyable at 2:30 PM on May 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

I've had two Pfizer shots and experienced brief, extreme irritability about 24 hours after each one.
posted by hungrytiger at 3:20 PM on May 12, 2021

I had this for my shot but much worse for *my partner’s* (who had his long before me.) I hadn’t heard the term arrival fallacy specifically but had chalked it up to that. It took me a few weeks to fully re-equilibrate.
posted by tchemgrrl at 4:09 PM on May 12, 2021

It may be connected to the fatigue. At least, that's my suspicion. I dealt with fatigue due to medical issues pre-Covid infection in December, and have experienced the insanity that Covid fatigue can be since. I'd gotten a lot better by a a couple weeks ago when I got my first Moderna shot, but not great. Vaccine hit me harder than it did the other household members, lasting a few days. Covid-fatigue ramped back up immediately, but has since tapered again to better than immediately pre-vaccine. I'm just adjusting life so that I have as little expected of me as possible in the week following my 2nd dose, planning for the worst, and dubiously hoping for the best.
posted by stormyteal at 4:32 PM on May 12, 2021

Oh god. Yes. I have no plausible biological explanation but I had some of the worst emotional outbursts I’ve had in my life. The only other time I was quite that out of control were the days immediately after I had my only surgery ever (with anesthesia, some people think it’s related to that).

Both shots caused a bout of it, but the second one coincided with the days before my period which made it much worse.

It was really bad, I was trying to make a major life decision at the time and wish I had been a bit more prepared for that. Good to know about the immune system theories above. I’ve stopped asking about this sort of thing because usually no one has any good answer.
posted by stoneandstar at 5:49 PM on May 12, 2021

I suddenly feel like every decision I've ever made was the wrong one, and my life is empty and full of suffering.

This was exactly it— severe, sudden. The pandemic slowly lifting was the only thing that seemed remotely positive to me, as I’m looking forward to seeing my family. The rest of my life seemed a terrible mistake!
posted by stoneandstar at 5:52 PM on May 12, 2021

Late 50s male with GAD. I had joint pain, then lingering body aches for nearly 2 weeks after my first AstraZeneca. I'd been excited to get the shot but it made me feel horribly old, decrepit and alone. I'm feeling much better 3+ weeks out.
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:23 AM on May 13, 2021

> Late 50s male with GAD. I had joint pain, then lingering body aches for nearly 2 weeks after my first AstraZeneca. I'd been excited to get the shot but it made me feel horribly old, decrepit and alone. I'm feeling much better 3+ weeks out.

This gives me some hope. It's 2 weeks after my first AZ shot, and while I had the usual fever/headache symptoms for the first few days, I have had lingering aches/pain since then in my legs which has made me over the top anxious about the possibility of any kind of clotting (as a 40 yr old woman, I am smack in the target demographic for it).

But as for the original topic, I am fairly sure I have a history of both anxiety and depression (although undiagnosed) and OH BOY did my vaccine send me through the roof with regret and panic. I live just outside of Vancouver, BC, and at the time I was offered the AstraZeneca shot the recommendation was "get the first available dose" since the supply chain for the other mRNA options was unknown. Despite my science brain knowing that the chances of clotting were so rare, my anxiety brain was terrified. Rare still means that someone wins this lottery. I regretted getting it immediately, and it was literally all I could think about. In the past I had these grand daydreams about how happy I would be to get vaccinated, but here I was, in full regret mode and terrified. None of the happy feelings I was hoping for. Every little headache, ache, pain, the issue I am still having with my legs, convinced me that I had made the biggest mistake of my life. I've now been trying to notice those feelings come up and get the "science" part of my brain to try to put things in perspective. Stress causes us to breath differently, breathing differently can cause muscle pain and trigger headaches. I'm not proud of how I handled the situation at the start, but even just focusing on my breathing has been helping me greatly.
posted by groovesquirrel at 11:24 AM on May 13, 2021

I am experiencing this, and I'm in a country that doesn't have pervasive COVID, so it's unlikely to be "arrival fallacy." I had wondered if it was a side effect and I'm glad you posted this.
posted by rednikki at 9:11 PM on May 13, 2021

Following up on my earlier comment to say that the depression has noticeably improved. And being vaccinated seems to be good for my mental health in the long run. Earlier today my spouse and I had a conversation about going somewhere and doing something, and it wasn't until afterwards that I recognized "wait, I'm not getting any anxiety pangs about this."
posted by Lexica at 5:14 PM on May 26, 2021