So If You Are 40+ and Doc Recommends A Shingles Shot...

[SteyrAUG]

Go get it.

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.

[pag23]

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..

[georgeib]

Man, sorry to hear you've had such a hard go of it. Hope you heal up quickly, and thank you for taking the time to warn us.

[pinzgauer]

I can thank shingles for:
- 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.

Get your shot. Or not, and learn the hard way.

[flenna]

I concur, shingles is the single worst medical experience I have had. Just laying in bed was terribly painful.

[chuckman]

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.

[utahjeepr]

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.

[rjacobs]

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.

[jmoore]

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!)

geezerjohn

[Alex V]

My wife had shingles twice in her 20s and early thirties. She said it was terrible.

I’ve never had Chicken Pox so I don’t know what boat I’m in.