The first and most crucial step in defending yourself and your loved ones against an inevitable flu season is to get your annual flu shot. The majority of the time, the flu shot’s modest side effects—fatigue, headache or muscular pains, and a low fever—are considerably more tolerable than actually getting the flu.
Perhaps the most typical side effect of the flu vaccine is discomfort, swelling, or redness at the injection site. On the surface, it makes sense: If you get a flu vaccine in your arm, you’ll experience arm soreness. But once a little needle administers the vaccine, is your arm really intended to be that sore?
According to specialists, there may be a little more to that isolated arm ache. Here are the reasons why it frequently occurs and some things you may do to make yourself less uncomfortable before and after the shot.
Why Does the Flu Shot Make My Arm Sore?
According to infectious disease specialist Amesh A. Adalja, MD, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, there are really a number of distinct factors that can cause you to have minor arm soreness after receiving your flu vaccination.
To begin with, the flu shot is an intramuscular vaccination, which means that it is administered via injection into an arm muscle. (According to the CDC, the best place to administer the vaccine is in your deltoid muscle, which surrounds your shoulder joint.
