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I currently have shingles.

If you haven't gotten vaccinated for it do so as soon as possible.

At best shingles is painful and makes you feel very weak and can last 1-2 weeks.

Shingles can in some cases be far worse and can cause blindness or worse.

Trust me guys, get that shingles vaccine before shingles gets you, i'm typing this with painful, burning, open rashes on my chest and back and a persistent headache on top of my head plus weakness, fatigue and general lethargy.

Shingles kick off usually if you're not eating and under intense stress.

So, doing that will usually help.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Shingles kick off usually if you're not eating and under intense stress.

So, doing that will usually help.

Well I can't help being under intense stress. I could have gotten a vaccine.

 Sobekta wrote:
Well I can't help being under intense stress. I could have gotten a vaccine.

It's usually a LOT of stress. I mean like, extreme degrees that you're unlikely to experience regularly and more focused around a specific "significant life-changing event". And the key is eating- when I had a breakout, it was because I hadn't eaten in 2 days (just some chips and a soda) because my meds were making me lose my appetite.

I'm honestly more surprised that there is a shingles vaccine. I've heard people talk about shingles and how much it sucks, but not once have I ever heard anyone say there's a vaccine for it XD

 LordofHats wrote:
I'm honestly more surprised that there is a shingles vaccine. I've heard people talk about shingles and how much it sucks, but not once have I ever heard anyone say there's a vaccine for it XD

https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/shingles/news/20180212/new-shingles-vaccine_what-you-need-to-know

Don’t catch chikenpox,best cure for shingles . Not sure how your meant to achieve that but you can’t get shingles without first having chickenpox.

 darkness screamer wrote:
Don’t catch chikenpox,best cure for shingles . Not sure how your meant to achieve that but you can’t get shingles without first having chickenpox.

Ok, so I'll just email Dr. Who, ask him to pop round in the TARDIS, take me back to my early childhood, put my earlier self in a plastic bubble for a couple years and everything will be ok now.

 Sobekta wrote:

 darkness screamer wrote:
Don’t catch chikenpox,best cure for shingles . Not sure how your meant to achieve that but you can’t get shingles without first having chickenpox.

Ok, so I'll just email Dr. Who, ask him to pop round in the TARDIS, take me back to my early childhood, put my earlier self in a plastic bubble for a couple years and everything will be ok now.

Weak. Call Doc Brown, and hit 88 miles per hour.

Don't let that Marty kid drive, he's a bit shaky.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Sobekta wrote:

 darkness screamer wrote:
Don’t catch chikenpox,best cure for shingles . Not sure how your meant to achieve that but you can’t get shingles without first having chickenpox.

Ok, so I'll just email Dr. Who, ask him to pop round in the TARDIS, take me back to my early childhood, put my earlier self in a plastic bubble for a couple years and everything will be ok now.

Weak. Call Doc Brown, and hit 88 miles per hour.

Don't let that Marty kid drive, he's a bit shaky.

Nah, i'd call captain kirk and ask if I could borrow a shuttle craft and some of his frequent flyer time travel years.

 Sobekta wrote:
Nah, i'd call captain kirk and ask if I could borrow a shuttle craft and some of his frequent flyer time travel years.

Well, then you could make out with a green chick.

Last time I did that, it was kind of awesome. I ask what species she was, and apparently it was "Anemic". I wonder what their planet is like...

Sorry to hear about the singles situation. I never got the chickenpox as a kid and I sort of worry about it now.

 Ouze wrote:
Sorry to hear about the singles situation. I never got the chickenpox as a kid and I sort of worry about it now.

See if you can get some sort of vaccine.. The shingles is caused by a virus that comes from having chickenpox, so look and see if a shingles vaccine would help prefernt it.

I'm fairly sure having chicken pox as a kid is quite important to stop you getting it as an adult? Never understood how that works but aparantly it does.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I'm fairly sure having chicken pox as a kid is quite important to stop you getting it as an adult? Never understood how that works but aparantly it does.

Basically the human immune system works by developing resistances to things it encounters. If you never get chickenpox as a kid your immune system never develops antibodies who can cope with it. Therefor when you get it as an adult you have no immunity and thus you get sick. Now I've never really read up on why its so much more serious to adults than it is to kids, but yeah chickenpox for most kids is an itchy annoyance (though it can be worse for some) but proportionally is far worse (and more deadly) to adults who never contracted it as kids.

Of course you also get a free dose of antibodies and loads of other stuff from your mother as you develop and from the colostrum milk very soon after birth.

A lot of vaccines are basically (at a very simple level) small/weak versions of the disease. You basically infect yourself and your body makes the antibodies to tackle it. Though its a low enough/modified/whatever sciencemagic dose that its generally considered a very low risk.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Shingles kick off usually if you're not eating and under intense stress.

So, doing that will usually help.

Usually, yes. But I got shingles recently when none of those conditions applied. It's basically a crapshoot whether you get it or not assuming you ever had chickenpox. I can also confirm it is not fun. Constant nerve pain, extremely itchy and oozing pustules combined with weakness and fatigue from lack of sleep due to the first two symptoms means it can take a long time to recover even after the virus itself has gone. You can get vaccinated once you have it too, but you need to do it early enough otherwise you just have to wait it out.

I seem to recall reading that after you get chickenpox as a child, the virus remains dormant in one's spinal column and that in certain rare cases, it can 'reactivate' in later life and hence cause shingles, even in those who had chickenpox. I also seem to recall the chickenpox/shingles virus is a variant of herpes, apparently.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I'm fairly sure having chicken pox as a kid is quite important to stop you getting it as an adult? Never understood how that works but aparantly it does.

Yes is it can be worse in adults as they get complications causing other life threatening stuff and be aware you can catch chicken pox more than once so your not totally safe.

Also on a grim note, chickenpox can be internal(no external signs or symptoms) particularly effecting the lungs, liver and brain.

Ref the vaccination, its 95% effective at best so still no definite cure.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I'm fairly sure having chicken pox as a kid is quite important to stop you getting it as an adult? Never understood how that works but aparantly it does.

It's the other way around. It's the dormant chickenpox virus that causes shingles. So if you had chickenpox already you are at risk of getting shingles - it's basically "chickenpox: the revenge" but since your body has immunity to chickenpox it manifests as a different virus. You can't contract shingles from someone with shingles, but you can get chickenpox if you come into contact with the infected pus from the rash shingles causes.

 Overread wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I'm fairly sure having chicken pox as a kid is quite important to stop you getting it as an adult? Never understood how that works but aparantly it does.

Basically the human immune system works by developing resistances to things it encounters. If you never get chickenpox as a kid your immune system never develops antibodies who can cope with it. Therefor when you get it as an adult you have no immunity and thus you get sick. Now I've never really read up on why its so much more serious to adults than it is to kids, but yeah chickenpox for most kids is an itchy annoyance (though it can be worse for some) but proportionally is far worse (and more deadly) to adults who never contracted it as kids.

Of course you also get a free dose of antibodies and loads of other stuff from your mother as you develop and from the colostrum milk very soon after birth.

A lot of vaccines are basically (at a very simple level) small/weak versions of the disease. You basically infect yourself and your body makes the antibodies to tackle it. Though its a low enough/modified/whatever sciencemagic dose that its generally considered a very low risk.

Yeah I get all that, it just seems odd that a kids immune system can handle full blown chickenpox but a developed adults can't.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Yeah I get all that, it just seems odd that a kids immune system can handle full blown chickenpox but a developed adults can't.

Well, I don't know that there is really a "good" scientific explanation, but one hypothesis is that children's immune system relies more on phagocytes and adults on antibodies.

That does stand to a certain amount of reason, since a child has not had time to develop antibodies to a variety of things yet, since they are young and as a result, need something else to fight off viruses. So, it could be that the phagocytes just happen to be more effective in fighting chickenpox, because it might minimize the effect of the virus itself and so in turn cause less complications.

A fair follow up question then is, why don't adults maintain both systems at maximum? I have no idea, I'm not a biologist though.

I seem to be on the way out of my shingles case. Fever gone, headache nearly so, more energy, less aches. Man for a couple days tho I was sicker than the Jeffrey dahmer fan club.

A colleague of mine got shingles last year and had a severe adverse reaction to the medication they gave him. He ended up in a coma, luckily he survived without brain damage, but he had to relearn to walk and talk when he woke up from his coma after over a month. He is still out of work now, and it happened in the spring last year.

I feel really sorry for him, and his wife a kid. A vaccine might have mild side effects in rare cases, but almost always less than any medication and at a lower rate.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
Shingles kick off usually if you're not eating and under intense stress.

So, doing that will usually help.

When I had mine it was because some mushroom pizza was bad. I spent hours gaking and vomitting with a terrible headache. As I was hunched over with my face to the porcelain for the final hurl i felt an unusual bubbling sensation in my back heading out to the skin. Finally I was able to sleep, to be woken up by the wife's shrieks the next day.

Saw a couple of doctors. One said make onion soup and leave it to soak on the effected area.

But I heard vaccines make you artistic!

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I'm fairly sure having chicken pox as a kid is quite important to stop you getting it as an adult? Never understood how that works but aparantly it does.

Shingles = Chicken Pox.

The disease is a two stage disease. Chicken pox is the first stage. The virus then goes dorment once you've fought it off and developed an immunity, and it waits in your central nervous system for you to get a weakened immune system, and then it reemerges as Shingles. Which manifests as a rash instead of the pox marks that chicken pox shows up as.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

Yeah I get all that, it just seems odd that a kids immune system can handle full blown chickenpox but a developed adults can't.

Well, Shingles only really appears in people with weakened immune systems. IE: The elderly or people who have a weakened immune system.

It would be very unusual for an otherwise healthy adult to develop shingles. You only get it if something is wrong and you become vulnerable to this weak virus that has been lurking in you since childhood. If anything, it is an indicator that your immune system has something wrong with it.

Mum suffers from Shingles and its not much fun for her, put it that way.

Hope you are feeling better, Sobekta.

I had chicken pox as a kid. No biggie at the time.

Years later, on a very odd shift pattern for a few months, I got shingles. They think it was bad sleeping patterns and variable diet. It was nasty.

I got told that getting shingles as an adult, if it is your first go with the virus, is the worst you can get it. Having it as a child lessens the impact in later instances.

I didn't get offered a vaccine, as I expect it was too late for me. If it is being offered, I'd say to take it. If you are a carrier, you could infect others. Getting it again yourself when you have become slightly immune is one thing. Passing it on to the unprotected, that's not good.

I feel you on the bad shift patterns! The last few weeks I've been doing everything from 2am starts, to finishing at 10am back in work at 11pm, then back to starting at 1pm after a 'weekend' off, and it really does affect you. I haven't been ill yet but my mood has definitely been affected, as well as my motivation in work and at the gym. But that's the military I guess.

My dad has had shingles a couple of times, fortunately it was 'just' the pain and some external leisons but definitely not good,

so if you're able to get yourself vaccinated (or have parents who qualify but haven't heard about it) go for it, it's available in the UK to those in their 70s

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/shingles-vaccination/