Can I take painkillers before or after a COVID-19 vaccine?

It’s best to avoid

them, unless you routinely take them for a medical condition. Although the

evidence is limited, some painkillers might interfere with the very thing the

vaccine is trying to do: generate a strong immune system response.

Vaccines work by

tricking the body into thinking it has a virus and mounting a defence against

it. That may cause arm soreness, fever, headache, muscle aches or other

temporary symptoms of inflammation that can be part of that reaction.

“These symptoms

mean your immune system is revving up and the vaccine is working,” Dr Rochelle

Walensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said

in a recent news briefing.

Certain painkillers

that target inflammation, including ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin and other brands)

might curb the immune response. A study on mice in the Journal of Virologyfound these drugs might lower production of antibodies — helpful substancesthat block the virus from infecting cells.

If you’re already

taking one of those medications for a health condition, you should not stop

before you get the vaccine — at least not without asking your doctor, said

Jonathan Watanabe, a pharmacist at the University of California, Irvine.

People should not

take a painkiller as a preventive measure before getting a vaccine unless a

doctor has told them to, he said. The same goes for after a shot: “If you don’t

need to take it, you shouldn’t,” Watanabe said.

If you do need one,

acetaminophen (Tylenol) “is safer because it doesn’t alter your immune

response,” he added.

The CDC offers other tips, suchas holding a cool, wet washcloth over the area of the shot and exercising thatarm. For fever, drink lots of fluids and dress lightly.

Call your doctor if

redness or tenderness in the arm increases after a day or if side effects don’t

go away after a few days, the CDC says.