All my life Shingles has been explained to me as something like adult chicken pox and I listened to a lot of dipshits talk about how the vaccine made them way more sick and who cares about a temporary rash thing.
Well the truth of the matter is it’s a bit more like adult POLIO. I had a very minor rash, something I attributed to mowing the lawn on a really hot day. Perhaps this is a heat rash or something…after all I’m getting older.
But then my left side began to hurt. Chest, side and back and I thought maybe I slept funny or took more hits than I remember last sparring session. Then I found myself pressing on muscles and thinking “holy crap” where are the bruises because this F’ing hurts. Next day I felt like I owed the mafia $20,000 and didn’t have it so three Vito’s worked me over with baseball bats.
Thinking perhaps this might not resolve itself I contact my doctor about an appointment and when he told me “shingles” I thought that’s BS…shingles is just a itchy rash.
Turns out I was very, very misinformed. Seems it’s actually a virus that attacks nerves in the body that sometimes manifests itself with a skin rash. The chicken pox you might have had as a child might technically be the same virus but the experience is very different.
I’m also pretty resistant to the idea of pain killers beyond ibuprofen so I told my doc to skip that, I’ll tough it out and lets just get going on the drugs that actually stop the nerve damage. Good idea and bad idea, I have a pretty high pain threshold but HOLY CRAP did that hurt. And for a month it hurt really bad, like insanely bad. I’m now about seven weeks in and things are starting to be normal and I can go through a day without a nerve band lighting up and momentarily crippling me.
In my adult experience I have been beaten, stabbed a couple times and hit with more blunt instruments than most people still walking around and shingles was still a uniquely painful experience for me. If I could have gone back in time and gotten a shingles shot and skipped the entire experience I’d have gladly paid $1,000 to do that instead.
So in short, if you are at that age…go get the shot and save yourself a lot of needless suffering. And if anyone tells you the shot is worse than the virus, you have my permission to tell them to FRO.
Good info…I am getting close to 50 so I take a greater interest in my health now and just got a full blood work and physical. Surprised my doctor didn’t recommend the shingles vax.
I know a coworker who got Shingles and wouldn’t wish it on anybody…
4 days in the hospital, the first of which were life threatening
the worst pain I’ve ever been in, and I’ve had multiple bad kidney stones
missing part of my nose
vision impairment in one eye because my body is fighting ghost shingles virus in my cornea
Ongoing nerve pain/discomfort 18 mths later in the impacted nerve (dermotope) that runs from the tip your nose through your eye socket over to your ear
Get the shot, it is recommended starting at 50. It is stupid that insurance won’t pay for it until you’re 60, so most people wait too late.
The best way to describe shingles impact on nerves is like a wire with the insulation eaten or eroded. Which causes the nerve to fire when it shouldn’t, or not fire when it should.
I’m still taking gabapentin to manage the nerve weirdness. If I don’t take it it feels like I have a worm or a fly wiggling in the corner of my eye. That and ache/tingling along the nerve.
So yeah, it can be way more than an itchy patch of skin.
Steyr said he’d pay a grand to avoid it? I’m at least $10k out of pocket due to shingles, and will continue to pay for meds.
I had shingles once, on my back, and to me it was nothing more than bothersome. Just annoying. But I know some people there was truly awful and debilitating.
I got the vaccine, I wish I had not. I had pretty severe side effects after each of them, especially the second.
I keep thinking I should get the sting, but I don’t get around to it. I don’t even really know what it is. It’s the chicken pox virus kinda launching a second assault or some such thing right? By and large if I hear about it it’s cause somebody is suffering a bout with it and having a rough time.
It’s one of those things that is “common knowledge”, and if you start asking questions people treat you like you’re a moron. If you keep asking, you realize most folks don’t really know either.
Chuckman’s statement and similar always make me nervous though. But then the alternative sounds pretty bad. Vax stuff is weird though. Like the rabies vax. OK rabies is bad, why don’t we all get rabies shots? One little sting vs the more dramatic series when it’s believed you are exposed.
I had it a few years ago on the back of my neck and my right shoulder.
I think it was gone in 4-5 days and took about another week to heal up.
But I have heard “internal” shingles is a whole nother ball game.
My nieces other grandma thought she was having a heart attack so they called 911 and rushed her to the hospital… no heart attack, just internal shingles on her heart and lungs(no clue how the diagnose that)… I think they kept her in the hospital for a week because of how shingles affects the nerves and COULD have caused her to have a real heart attack.
I, too, took a ride on the shingles train. Felt like someone was using a frickin blowtorch on my rib cage - pretty much constantly for a month!!!
And I say this as not only a victim of shingles, but also as someone who taught pathophysiology for 40+ years - get the damn vaccine!!! (Look up some pics!!!). And make sure your PARENTS GET IT IF THEY ARE STILL AROUND!!!
It can be devastating to seniors! (And I say that as a senior:)
And finally - EVEN IF YOU HAVE HAD SHINGLES ALREADY, you could still get it AGAIN if unvaccinated!!! (OK - and in amazingly rare cases, you might still get shingles even though you have been vaccinated!)
I had it this last Xmas. Pain started and was so bad I thought it was kidney stones. The rash running midline from front to back showed up a few days later, and that’s when I knew what it was.
Like others, I had heard “rash”, and figured it was some super itchy stuff that sucked. The rash is just a visual sign of the infection. Your skin hurts all the way to the bone. Clothes hurt. Clothes hurt a lot! But not wearing a shirt meant that getting a chill also hurt. Sleep was a drag because lying down put pressure on it. Aleve helped take the edge off, but mostly it was a month of suck.
I’d been meaning to get the vax, but a lot of life and procrastination got in the way. Well, I paid the price and got lucky it wasn’t higher.
There was an older version of the vaccine that caused more problems, but the newer one is supposed to be far better.
My father developed Shingles a few months ago. Before he figured out what it was, the pain made him think he was dying. A few treatments later, and it was gone. Almost forgotten.
I’ve been trying to get the shot because I just turned 50 and can’t get an appointment anywhere because everyone is pushing the Covid shots.
My Dr said I couldn’t get it until I turned 50 so, Ok well now I’m 50 give me the damn shot. Nope have to wait until this pandemic is over.
I am hoping to not get Shingles as I have many other health issues including peripheral neuropathy and that isn’t very pleasant by itself.
Everyone I’ve talked to said Shingles is horrible, so hopefully I can find someplace to get the first shot soon, I read you have to wait 6 months after the first shot before getting the second shot.
Yes, you can have shingles more than once, so bad luck trumps antibodies. Also, avoid getting the shingles vaccine the same day you get the flu vaccine (I got it in 2019 and the vaccine of the year was for Flu A, I think). I hurt like 10 motherf@ckers the next several days! Both are a good idea if you’re older, just don’t combine them! I wanted to curb stomp my pharmacist, but honestly, they don’t know shit beyond how to maybe give an IM injection without getting it in a vein (I didn’t observe aspiration on the syringe either time). Probably d/t the combination, the first one was way worse than the second one that comes 4 months later.
My gf had it along her 5th thoracic nerve root, which hit right under her bra on the left side of her chest. Fortunately, she’s just a little thing, so the A’s could run free!
So there really isn’t internal vs. external shingles. This is a source of a lot of confusion. The rash is a symptom of shingles, the nerve damage is what the virus actually does. In some people the damage is moderate but here is the thing, you don’t know what group you are in UNTIL you go through it and it is worth almost anything to not find out the hard way.
Aside from firearms, safe use of firearms and removing the “sporter clause” from the 1968 GCA you really won’t see me advocating things very strongly and I rarely to never suggest to other people what they do regarding their own personal health issues so when I decide to wade into those waters it’s because I really am trying to save some people from a really severe life experience that is easily avoided.
Doctors all recommended the shingles vaccine to me, but each and every one failed to adequately explain the potential severity of the virus and the potential for permanent nerve damage. I’m an active person who still like to run, jump and climb so then a whole side of my body becomes 80% impaired it’s a BFD and I know it would be an unacceptable life change for most people on this forum.
So if you (or anyone else) learn anything from me it’s “922r must be removed” and “get the shingles vaccine.”
