SELF MAGAZINE – @selfmagazine
February 11, 2021: By Sarah Jacoby
You may need to delay your usual screening.
The most common COVID-19 vaccine side effects aren't particularly surprising: arm pain, fatigue, maybe a mild fever. But experts want the public to be aware that one lesser-known side effect of the vaccines might cause symptoms that are similar to warning signs of breast cancer.
A small number of people have developed lymphadenopathy (meaning swollen or tender lymph nodes) in their armpit within a few days of receiving the vaccine. The swollen lymph nodes show up on the same side of the body where they received the vaccine and tend to stay swollen for a week or two, Christine Edmonds, M.D., assistant professor of radiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, tells SELF. According to data from the clinical trials, about 11% of people who received the Moderna vaccine experienced this side effect after their first dose and 16% experienced it after their second dose.
Your lymph nodes are small, round bundles of cells that play a large role in your body's immune system, the Mayo Clinic explains. They're responsible for filtering the lymphatic fluid (which contains infection-fighting white blood cells) that circulates in your body. You're probably more familiar with the ones in your neck, which tend to swell when you have a cold, for instance. But you actually have lymph nodes throughout your body, which can become enlarged with extra fluid in response to a nearby infection or, as it turns out, vaccination.
This side effect is actually part of the body's normal immune response to the vaccine, Sarah P. Cate, M.D., FACS, director of the special surveillance and breast program at Blavatnik Family Chelsea Medical Center, and assistant professor of breast surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, tells SELF. “The vaccine is entering through the deltoid muscle [in the shoulder], and the lymph nodes in that area are getting irritated because it's promoting this immune response," Dr. Cate says.
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