When getting the new coronavirus vaccine, why do we have to alternate between the left and right arms?

Friends who have received the new coronavirus vaccine or HPV vaccine, have you been asked to change your arm?

When I was given these two vaccines, I was asked to switch arms. At that time, I felt like this 👇👇👇

Adhering to the principle of saving medical staff's time, the doubts were suppressed.

A quick search online revealed that many netizens had the same question, and related topics also became a hot topic on Weibo, attracting nearly 200 million people's attention.

In the comments, some people were asked to change, while others did not. So what difference does it make whether to change the arm or not? Why is the arm hit instead of the buttocks? With this question, I consulted a friend who is a nurse.

Some netizens are worried that the vaccine will be injected into the same arm, which will affect its effectiveness.

In fact, the vaccine is injected into the deltoid muscle of the upper arm. As long as it is the deltoid muscle, it doesn't matter whether it is the left hand or the right hand, and it has no effect on the preventive effect.

But considering that most people are accustomed to using their right hand, medical staff usually recommend that the first shot be given in the left arm.

At the same time, considering that some people may experience transient adverse reactions such as redness, swelling, nodules, and pain in the local skin of their arm after receiving the first dose of the vaccine, the second dose will be injected in the right arm.

Especially since the new coronavirus vaccine is a mass vaccination and will be administered to hundreds of millions of people, in order to improve the efficiency of vaccination, all people will be required to be vaccinated on the left or right side (the requirements will also be different in different regions and hospitals).

I still remember that when I was a kid, many vaccines were given in the buttocks. Every time I got the shot, I felt very uncomfortable.

Nowadays, most vaccines are injected into the arms or outer thighs (infant vaccines are mostly injected into the legs). Why is this?

The primary reason is that it is inconvenient to pierce the buttocks!

Can you imagine the scene during mass vaccination, with the door of the vaccination room open, and everyone trying to speak but not being able to, and taking off their pants in a secretive manner?

The picture is so beautiful... Just thinking about it can make people so embarrassed that they dig their toes to make a "three-bedroom, one-living-room" space. This will not only greatly affect the enthusiasm for vaccination, but also take too long to take off the pants, which affects the efficiency of vaccination!

More importantly, vaccination into the deltoid muscle of the arm induces a fast immune response!

Vaccine Principle

The principle of the vaccine is to induce an immune response, and the muscle area is an excellent site for vaccination because the muscle tissue contains important immune cells that can recognize antigens, and is close to the lymph nodes under the armpits, which is more conducive to the transmission of antigens and thus stimulates an immune response.

Moreover, muscles are rich in blood vessels, which can transport vaccine ingredients throughout the body more quickly.

You may wonder: Isn’t the buttocks muscle area larger and has more abundant blood vessels?

But the buttocks are thick, and some people’s buttocks are particularly thick!

It is difficult for the vaccine needle to penetrate the fat layer and accurately insert into the gluteus maximus. If you are not careful, the intramuscular injection will become a subcutaneous injection, which will not only affect the effectiveness of the vaccine but may also cause unnecessary side effects.

At the same time, the body's thickest sciatic nerve is distributed deep in the gluteus maximus muscle. In order to avoid damaging the sciatic nerve, precise positioning is required during injection (the buttocks vaccination method is now basically eliminated).

The reason why most vaccines for infants and young children are injected into the outer thigh muscles is because the deltoid muscle layer of the arm is relatively thin and the gluteus maximus is not well developed, which is very likely to cause sciatic nerve damage.

The legs have thick muscles, abundant blood circulation, and few nerves and large blood vessels passing through them. They have a wide injection range and strong operability, making them the most ideal and safe vaccination site for infants and young children.

Therefore, the deltoid muscle of the upper arm is the preferred site for intramuscular injection in children over 3 years old and adults.

The last soul-searching question: After receiving the new crown vaccine, which shot do you think hurts more?

| Cover and text source: Internet |

Source: Youlai Healthy Life