Shingles. Not the kind on your roof.

from my personal stash

[tinamina]

Apparently there is a vaccine for chicken pox now so the young uns don’t get that disease so no one is immunized against shingles anymore. Therefore it is no longer an old fogey disease but a person phenonemon.
They say it attacks the nerves on one side of your body and in a specific area. I had it on the right upper part of my face from nose to the top of my scalp. I have visible scars. They say if it comes back it will attack the same place as before.
The vaccine is 40% effective.
Lysine by mouth and on the sores is probably best treatment.

[tinamina]

The vaccine is not 100% effective, anywhere from 50-70% is all and if you are younger than 65 most ins. won’t pay for it.
Please don’t tell folks it’s their own fault if they get sick from this horrid disease. You may get it at any time, even after vaccine.

[Slings and Arrows]

50-70% beats 0% any day of the year. The poster who I quoted may have been a bit harsh, but it is foolish not to take precautions. Also, the vaccine costs $220 at Walgreen’s - not cheap, granted, but much less painful than a case of shingles.

[tinamina]

I tried to get the vaccine at the pharmacy but was told I was too young so I would have to go to Dr to get prescription. Dr appt costs more money, so add that to cost of prescription for younger folks. Health care in USA today. Some folks still have no insurance and other priorites reign. When next I needed to spend money on a doctor I forgot to ask for a vaccine prescription, since I was there for other things.
I have read cases of young children getting shingles these days and they are also too young for the vaccine.

[iontheball]

This is an important thread and should be taken seriously by everyone. I had either never heard of or previously ignored discussions about shingles until it hit me this last January. At first, I thought I just had a bad tooth ache in my upper right jaw that required attention. I went to the dentist and he said there was nothing wrong with any of my teeth. That is when I started to worry because the right side of my face was now getting very numb and it was tender, sore, and painful. It even occurred to me that I might be having a stroke because of the numbness. I went home and at the evening dinner table the next day my wife asked me what those blisters were that were now forming on my right check under my eye and next to my nose. After discussing the numbness and pain with her and doing a little research on the Internet, we quickly self-diagnosed the problem as shingles. I went to my doctor the next day and he confirmed it was shingles and there was no way of stopping it. It was going to run its course and I would be in for a long haul. He prescribed vicodin for the pain and neurontin to try and calm the traumatized nerves that were now shooting electrical impulses through my right facial nerve. Neither drug helped that much. I had a headache that felt like my head was going to explode. At times I felt like I wanted to curl up in a ball and kiss everything goodbye. It has been 24/7 pain for months. My entire right facial nerve was hit by the virus, from the top of my head, down through the center of my face to my chin. The virus's strategy is to travel down through whichever nerve it targets and seriously damage it all the way to the nerve ends. You can literally see the tracks of the nerve by the line of blisters that erupt on the skin's surface. It is now July and I am still suffering with pain across my cheek and below my eye. I have weird tickling nerve sensations when the wind blows on my cheek, itchiness across my nose and cheek, and constant pain at the outer corner of my eye whenever I blink my eye.

I have studied this illness and have come to these conclusions. Herpes Zoster is the chicken pox virus and once it infects your body it never leaves. After you recover from the pox, the virus retreats into your nerve ganglia and remains there as long as your immune system is able to suppress it. Your immune system keeps it at bay with antibodies built up at the time of the pox infection. However, these antibodies diminish in time and you then become vulnerable to a shingles outbreak, especially if your immune system becomes otherwise compromised by another disease or illness. The recently developed live virus vaccine is meant to trigger or excite your immune system into replacing the depleted antibodies. I have been told that even after a bout with the shingles, you should consider getting the vaccine after a year or after you have recovered from the shingles. The only way to describe the living shingles hell is that the pain is excruciating and the recovery is excruciatingly slow. If you are over 50, please consult with your doctor about getting the vaccine. You should not feel comfortable even if you have never had the chicken pox or if you have been previously vaccinated against the pox. Consult with your doctor. The shingles vaccine is not 100% effective, but anything to improve your odds against getting shingles is worth every penny it costs.

[midnightcat]

Even at drug stores? I will have to look into that. I’d like my 81 yr old dad and mom to get that shot. Given the misery shingles causes, the vaccine would be worth it.

[West Texas Chuck]

I was on Valtrex and Prednisone, but I’ve finished them off..

[trisham]

I had it three times in a four month period. I hated the pain medication. It made me sick.

It's been about three years, I think, and I haven't had a problem. I take Vitamin D and L-Lysine daily, and over time the "phantom" pain has decreased to almost nothing.

[West Texas Chuck]

Dang, that sounds rough. A coworker tells me her hubby had it on his head and he was flattened for a couple of weeks by the pain.

I’m just trying to rest up as much as I can, but work is work and we have remodel stuff happening around the house now, so relaxation is spotty at best. I was supposed to be on PTO this week for a camping trip, but I figured sleeping in a tent in the Texas heat would probably not be a good move so I’m trying to work instead.

Good luck, I hope you feel better soon.

[iontheball]

A doctor took blood from my mother’s arm and gave her a shot with it in her rear and she got over shingles in short order. He called it “treating you the old fashion way.” That was about 50 years ago...he couldn’t do it because of red tape today. But it worked. He was a neighbor and family friend. He also was a genius. Really.
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Was the outbreak on her rear end?

[iontheball]

Not everyone can afford it and it is considered only 70% effective.
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If you get it, you will kick yourself for having read this thread and not scrimped up the dollars to pay for the shot. It is that important, because once you get it you will have a year of suffering to reflect on your unfortunate choice. I know the 70% figure, but I have been told that even where the vaccine does not prevent shingles, it can lessen its effects on you.

[steve86]

I am still trying to determine if I was ever infected with VZV. Don’t think so.

My wife, OTOH, contracted both Chickenpox AND Smallpox! as an infant in a third-world country and had a rough time with each (understatement). I want her to get the vaccine but so far, no luck.

I have experienced a similar extremely painful skin condition with forced immobilization in the bed and so forth so I can understand your position on this.

[iontheball]

So what is the general consensus on the age to get a shot? My dad just got over them from the holidays, he’s 85. Horrible pain with the outbreak on his neck and shoulder area.
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Generally, the shot should be had by age 50. Because an outbreak in so dependent on a number of personal health variable, no precise age applies. Unfortunately, most insurance companies will not cover the shot, if they do at all, until you reach age 60.

[lonestar]

Was the outbreak on her rear end?

LOL! No...that's the customary place to give shots where we live.

BTW, that really happened. I wish I had asked more questions at the time. Now they are both dead.

I knew a young man who had been to docs from Dallas to Houston with a form of Athlete's foot. Finally he went to Dr. Joe who got some bottles out of a cabinet, mixed ingredients from each up, put it in a bottle and told him to put it on his feet morning and night. It went away within a week.

The doctor was also on the Atomic Energy Comm. as a young man, and was an authority on the Shroud of Turin.

He practiced med until about 96. The FBI showed up whrn he was 95 because they thought somebody had stolen his ID and was practicing medicine.

He is one of my MOST unforgettable characters. Knowing him was priceless.

And he knew WHERE to give a shot! LOL!

[West Texas Chuck]

URL from a doctor pal of mine with a page link for doctor stuff:

Link to AAFP Herpes Zoster page