Beginning this week, the United States was able to begin administering the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use.

Those receiving the vaccine first are those who are high risk as well as front-line workers such as doctors and nurses.

This, of course, comes after companies like Pfizer and Moderna has gone through nearly a year of testing and trials to come up with their vaccines.

But during these trials, there were a lot of side effects reported as a result of their injections and we’re learning what they were from the people themselves rather than the difficult to understand vaccine inserts.

“I woke up around midnight freezing,” said Jocelyn Edwards, 68, a retired nurse who tested the Moderna vaccine, according to The Wall Street Journal. “For the next 24 hours I had intense chills, serious neck pain, headache, all my joints were aching.”

Edwards also had a fever that eventually peaked at 102.4 degrees. She sweat so much she lost three pounds, she said. But the next day after her second shot, she felt fine when she woke up.

A trial researcher told Edwards that she had exactly the right response, with her body quickly building a strong immune response. “It’s better having 36 hours of feeling really rough than getting Covid,” Edwards said.

The amount of people who have experienced side effects to some degree are actually pretty high, relatively speaking.

The Wall Street Journal wrote, “Pfizer’s vaccine, which uses technology similar to Moderna’s, showed similar side effects, according to data released last week. Among its volunteers aged 18 to 55 receiving their second dose, 15.8% got a fever, compared with 0.5% of the placebo group; 35% got chills versus 4% of placebo recipients; and they also got more headaches and were more fatigued than those who got the placebo. Volunteers in both trials who received the vaccine also reported pain at the injection site more frequently than placebo recipients.”

However, the CDC says that it’s a good sign that your body is responding to the vaccination and that your body is building the antibodies it needs to ward off COVID-19.