Now that I’m over 65 I qualify to get the pneumonia immunization. The doctor mentioned that it has much less in the way of side-effects than common viral immunizations—flu, covid, shingles, etc.
Maybe that’s true, as far as the fever and body ache side-effects. But as far as the soreness-in-my-arm side-effect, it is really, really not true.
I’ve been whacked in the arm with a steel bar and not had it hurt as much as my arm hurts right now. (Admittedly, I’ve mostly been whacked with steel bars very gently.)
I’m looking forward to getting an antibody test to see if I’ve seroconverted for the SARS-CoV-2 virus because I think it would be interesting, not because I think it will tell me if I’m immune to the virus. I’m not a moron.
As a big ol’ data geek, I’m by default interested in any metrics that I can get, especially ones related to me.
One of the metrics tracked by the Oura ring is body temperature, which is a metric don’t normally pay much attention to unless I think I might be sick, and I haven’t wanted to get sick just to explore this feature of the Oura ring. But a couple of days ago I did something much better: I got my shingles vaccination.
(I’ve been trying to get my shingles vaccination for months now, since they changed the recommended age from 60 to 50 and my insurance company started covering it for young folks like me. But with all the younger boomers thinking the same thing, the vaccine became scarce. Jackie and I finally tracked down shots last week.)
My immune system viewed the shot as something of a stern challenge, and sure enough my body temperature became elevated. In the graph below observe the last three data points, which show a spike to 0.7℉ above my baseline, followed by a 0.6℉ elevation the second night. Last night was only 0.3℉ above the baseline and back down in the normal range. (Near the middle you can see another spike to 0.7℉ above baseline followed by a negative deviation of a similar amount. That excursion was, I think, related to life stress.)
My average nighttime body temperature deviation from baseline for February 10 to March 16 2019.
Observing that I was under some stress, the ring has been advising me to take it easy for the past couple of days. Knowing that the stress in question was a healthy one, I didn’t take the warning too seriously. The weather was nice the day after the shot, so I went out for a run, despite my ring’s advice.
Despite disregarding that particular day’s advice, I’ve actually been paying rather close attention to the ring’s indications as to my readiness. For example yesterday, when my body temperature and other factors suggested that I was still not recovered, I did take it easy—and I have been rewarded with an excellent night’s sleep and a moderately high readiness score for today:
Sleep panel from Oura ring dashboard.
Perhaps today will be a good day for a long walk. By the middle of the week we’ll have some more excellent running weather, and hopefully I’ll be ready for it.
