Shingles

4/12/2012

Yup, I've got them, and not the kind that sit on the roof.

I've got the shingles zoster and so I've been learning new things the past few days, such as...this is not an "old persons" virus and that the rash can appear before the pain and so on.

On top of it, I've got a heck of a head and chest cold...all inter-related I'd guess.

So, I'm gonna take a few days off. The Tao will return next week. Be well my smart Intertube friends. Or if you'd like, share your own Shingles stories here. It's been fascinating to learn them from my friends. Who knew?

4/12/2012 01:39:39 am

Oh Laura, I am sorry. Rest up and take care of yourself. I have not experienced shingles myself, but have several family members who have. It got pretty rough for them. I wish you well.

Barbara Alfaro link

4/12/2012 01:52:21 am

There is a misconception that only women get shingles. David Letterman had them years ago. Plenty of rest and being gentle with yourself are called for - big time!

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Conscious at last!

4/12/2012 02:48:01 am

Laura-

I am sending you kind healing thoughts. I hope that you are able to engage in restful activities that give you joy. I'm with Barbara Alfaro- be gentle with yourself!

When I am not feeling well, music is often helpful-- I don't know if that is true for you. But whatever else you need to do, thank your body for giving you this signal. You DESERVE a break today!

ManxMamma

4/12/2012 03:17:10 am

I hope you heal quickly. It is a nasty disease. I understand that there is a vaccine for it now.

mistah charley, ph.d.

4/12/2012 03:30:08 am

I had shingles at a young age - I was twenty - it was a VERY stressful time in college.

nswfm

4/12/2012 05:05:12 am

I got them the Easter with stabbing pain in my back before I graduated from Cal. I went to the ER at Alta Bates because the rash got over 10x worse between Friday and Saturday AM. They gave me a shot of Demerol for the agonizing stabbing feeling and a prescription for Zovirax Oral which was not strong enough, and I got even a bigger area of rash.

When I went home over spring break to see my regular dermatologist who teaches at UCLA, he *flipped out* over the too-small dose because this was going to leave a 12"x 8"scar over my back near my waist and a little in the front. He told me to use Domeboro to dry out the blisters, and it took about 15 years for the scars to fade completely. I also had occasional stabbing pains over that period.

I had chicken pox when I was less than 4 months old, and my dermatologist said I could have a recurrence, which I never want. I think it was stress related--it's surprising that I didn't get it after 9/11....

Margie

4/12/2012 03:52:53 am

So sorry to hear about your shingles, Laura! My sister's had them a few (very stressful) times in her life... I hope your life is allowing you time to rest, relax, be at peace, and heal.

avsutton

4/12/2012 06:47:45 am

To give you another side to the story - I, too, had a shingles outbreak. And very little pain, some itching, but nothing drastic. It did make me feel a little run down, but again, nothing that couldn't be handled with aspirin.

So, you see, shingles isn't always terrible - and here's hoping your course of it is easy!

Liz

4/12/2012 07:18:14 am

Rhus Tox, a homeopathic remedy available at your health food store helps tremendously.

Hope you feel better soon sweetie.

4/12/2012 07:41:24 am

You poor thing! here's hoping you are up and about soon, free of itches, rashes and pain. I hope the handsome men in your life take excellent care of you.

Ottoline

4/12/2012 12:44:34 pm

Oh, no! My understanding that shingles outbreaks are WAY more common when one is run down, stressed. I see other commenters cite that too, and my case of it in my 40s sure happened to me in a run-down time. So all the more reason to do all the aggressively healthy things for yourself, in addition to the meds.

Older people get it a lot because their systems are weaker. My father got it at 85. Whatever the incubation period is for this pox, I noticed that one of my boys got chicken pox x days after exposure to my father's. Like about 30 pustules. Then, after x days. my other son got it -- about 5 pustules. Then x days later, I got it, with only one or two little pustules. So it was weaker each time. But all of us had that flu-like exhaustion and muscle aches that went with it.
BOTH my boys had been vaccinated (my father and me also), and when we went to the MD for the first boy, the MD said he was seeing a number of cases of chicken pox in vaccinated children. So the virus had become slightly different, he said. Pretty scary in a public health sense.

This is of course the herpes virus: the chicken pox is one variant, herpes is another, and that bad genital one is the third, and I have always suspected there is a lip-only variant of the genital type -- i.e., you can get these monster carbuncles on your inner lip that hurt way worse than they look, but they DO look bad. And the lip version can be without the genital version. And of course the virus lives in your spinal fluid forever, popping up whenever you get run-down enough to let it.

I give you all I know about it in the hopes that if I've gotten it wrong anywhere, someone will correct me. My impression remains that there's no cure, just meds to minimize pain, itching, swelling of the bumps and to let you sleep. But it runs its course, and the variation in severity and length is great from one person to another.

I too hope yours is mild, Laura. But stay a distance from loved ones, lest you infect them.The weeping pustules are contagious. I say an at-home hospital regimen with exercise and fruits galore. Reading in bed and snoozing. NO WORK. That's my Rx.

Ottoline

4/12/2012 01:24:51 pm

Correction: "This is of course the herpes virus: the chicken pox is one variant, shingles (herpes zoster) is another, and that bad genital one is the third, . . ."

Does anyone know the answer to this: shingles seems to start spontaneously with no known infection source (except the pox virus in your spinal fluid). Genital herpes is from an outside source, right? The lip version seems to be from no outside source. Chicken pox is from an outside source, and then the virus goes to live dormant in your spinal fluid, right?

Chickadee

4/19/2012 02:29:36 am

The chicken pox virus and the shingle virus are the same thing. You can't get shingles unless you previously had chicken pox. The virus remains in your body and may or may not ever reactivate in the shingles form.

Excellent and accurate information here:
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/shingles/DS00098

V-a

4/13/2012 12:15:07 am

To a quick recovery of yourself! I'm a bad one for always seeing illness as metaphor (thanks to Ms. Sontag.) At least it helps me through the indignity of it to be philosophical. Imagine how unsurprised I was to find out that my injured shoulder was not a surfing problem-- but a stiff neck from a bad computer setup and too much phone calling. (!) When I didn't listen to my neck, it took out my shoulder.

I hope you are as loving-mothering with yourself as you are with your cats and son.

Conscious at last!

4/13/2012 01:39:38 am

Ha- oh yes, but dear old Sontag implored us not to use illness as a metaphor.
I think she was full of it - an overly cerebral ego struggling to ignore the energies of the heart. Too bad for her, she ignored her feelings into the grave. Oh well. Her son, David Rieff, wrote a book about her illness that was more honest.

In any case -- Laura, I'm still sending you wonderful wishes for healing and rest. :-))

V-A

4/13/2012 03:42:24 am

Gosh, thanks, CAL! That's what selective memory does for me now. I remember what I want to. Yes, you're right about Sontag. A very sad end, to be sure, and the mess that came after. Which may be another argument for being conscious of everything we can, including illness and health.

TrueBlueGirl

4/13/2012 03:00:53 am

I had a terrible case of shingles when I was 28 and under intense and prolonged stress. What was unusual was that I had no external rash or other symptoms. My pain - and it was terrible - was internal. In fact, I was hospitalized, given spinal taps, knocked out with morphine for a week, all while the search went on for the cause. My pain was from my spine around my rib cage to my sternum. I experienced periodic severe spasmodic pain for almost 10 years, usually after illness or high stress, and it literally hurt to breathe. Even now the memory of the pain is sharp.

Good luck, be calm, carry on.

WakeUpAmerica

4/13/2012 08:01:25 am

L-Lysine works well to suppress viruses. It works especially well on cancre sores and cold sores. I haven't had shingles, but if you google L-lysine and shingles, you will find that it appears to work. Poor you. You have all my sympathy. {{{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}}}

Ottoline

4/13/2012 01:09:58 pm

Be careful not to touch your eyes while you are contagious.

Ottoline

4/13/2012 01:28:34 pm

Gloria Steinem described in one of her books her situation with her mother, who was not nurturing. In her usual "make lemonade," be positive mode, the conclusion I recall GS offering is that at some point we should become (for ourselves) the mother we wanted/needed and didn't have. That was a big eye-opener for me. So I echo V-A: I hope you can put those loving do-it-all mothering skills to use for YOURSELF for a change. Wish I could zoom over with a fresh fruit plate and do your three worst household tasks for you!

Ottoline

4/14/2012 04:57:45 am

O/T? Or maybe the John Edwards scandal is NOT really that different from shingles: some people get giant pain and consequences, some don't.

I am talking about the comparison of the MSM-covered Edwards scandal and the Palin Baby Hoax, of course. I was on the edge of my seat watching this Rachel Maddow report on Edwards

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#47047475

(the Edwards part starts at 00:46) -- the words Maddow uses are almost the words she could use for the Palin Baby Hoax. EXCEPT we are not aware of Palin using campaign funds in the perpetrating of her particular lie/hoax. Maybe that's the key to MSM coverage: you need an indictable offense or forget it. Ethics and lying don't count.

Has anyone been reading the Hampton Dellinger bolg on the Edwards trial? I have not, but it sounds like a parallel universe to our Palin Hoax blogs.

Conscious at last

4/14/2012 05:58:33 am

Didn't we have some discussion recently about how our girl, SP, might have used PAC funds for Trig's care?
Was that part of the very detailed posts about health insurance/fraud that Laura posted? (I think there was a guest poster - MicMac or something like that .)

Ottoline

4/14/2012 07:37:16 am

If yes, then that would be very parallel to Edwards using the money for his mistress's support. But I don't understand the money part, for either one. I thought Bunny Mellon gave Edwards close to $1M to use as he saw fit. Don't know why that info would be public unless she claimed it was tax-deductible or went through some public channel.

But Young lying for Edwards sure has its parallel in various people lying for Palin, although no one has written a book about it like Young did. (I don't count Bailey). Maybe Schmidt will.

molly

4/15/2012 08:28:11 am

I got a rare illness 16 years ago, totally paralysed me from neck, down to toes, 6 weeks in I.C.U hooked up to all possible machines, 16 weeks in hospital total. I have been left with awful nerve pain, from extensive nerve damage, but can do mostly everything I used to do. It took a long time to walk, dress myself, get out of the wheelchair, and get on with living. The doctors and nurses did not expect me to live, but with 3 children, a mom has to survive. I take L-Lysine every day, if I don't, then I get bad sores in the corners of my mouth, like coldsores, which can take 2 months to go away. I suggest everyone to take L-Lysine, every day. I hope you get better very soon. If nothing natural takes care of the pain, ask your doctor for a drug called Gabapentin. When my teenage daughter had cancer, is when I found out about this drug, and began taking it for my nerve pain.( My daughter fought hard for 19 months, but did not survive her cancer.)

4/15/2012 09:36:50 am

i'm very sorry for your loss.

molly

4/15/2012 10:48:44 am

Thank you very much, Up. It will be 10 years this coming September 11, but to me, it seems like just yesterday. The worst part is, that I lived, but she didn't. Hard to understand that one. Just today, my husband complained that I really had to go thru her things, and get rid of them, somehow. I feel that if I throw her things away, then I am throwing her away. Sorry for going OT. I hope you get your shingle pain under control. Another medication used for shingle (nerve) pain, is called Lyrica. Wish I knew of more ways to help, as I hate knowing someone is having pain. Feel better:)

Ottoline

4/15/2012 01:15:34 pm

molly -- please accept my heartfelt sympathy too. Losing a child. Sept 11 with all the attn to WTC issues must be excruciating. I cannot understand death either, but I do understand not sorting out your daughter's things. I was the same for my mother's things, and still am re my father's. I just start and dissolve into too many memories. I am old enough to consider my own death, and there's a little bit of comfort in thinking about divesting myself of their things AND my things. So many of them are so hard-won, long ago, and so precious for that . But only I know that. Upon my death another person will just sweep it all into the dumpster. So: respectfully divesting myself of almost everything is the goal I work on now, but it's so easy to get distracted because it's so hard. I crave the simplified possessions of a nun, but I already miss the things I must give away. I just send you the very very best wishes.

4/16/2012 07:06:55 am

I am so sorry Molly.

molly

4/16/2012 02:29:19 pm

Ottoline and Jo, thanks also, for kind words. I am sorry any of us has to suffer any of our loved one's death, it is just the way life is. People always tell me that for everything that I have had to live thru-and there have been many, many things-that I am doing so well emotionally. But I reply that I am strong enough to manage, and perhaps my shoulders are a lot stronger than someone else's may be, so I don't mind having some extra. We all have our crosses to bear in life. Rarely does a person get to skip their way thru life, without having something sad or difficult to experience. I enjoy talking to people, and wish so much that I had the courage to start up a blog. I have lots to say, and enjoy hearing other people's stories. Sorry Laura, for crashing your blog, and going so off topic. I really do hope you are feeling better:)

lilly-olily@hotmail.com

4/16/2012 03:41:29 am

Tai Chi is supposed to help prevent shingles.

I had it once, and caught it immediatly, got an expensive anti viral, and it vanished very quickly. the doctor said it had been a very bad time for shingles. I had done simple tai chi and stopped doing it.

Now I have a spring allergy worst ever, and my doctor said the last three days have been dismal for people.We need a good rain.

I wonder if something triggers groups of people getting shingles at any particular period since stress is a componant.

RWJ

4/16/2012 04:08:58 am

I had the shingles a few years ago in my 50's on my front chest under the breasts where the bra-line hits so I couldn't wear a bra. I tried putting everything on them for some relief. The only thing that made them feel better and not burn so much was swabbing blue listerine on it with cotton balls. Doesn't make them disappear but it's the only thing I found that soothes the burning/itching and afford some relief.

curiouser

4/16/2012 06:29:49 am

Dear Laura -- I so hope you get the nasty virus under control and recover quickly. Excessive indulgence is in order. Please be well enough to enjoy the pampering.

Up on the Roof - Carole King and James Taylor link

4/17/2012 05:30:34 am

Carole King wrote this song. I hope you enjoy it. "Up on the roof" could literally be on the roof, or it could be an imaginal space in which one's problems, while not eradicated, are metaphorically far enough away for one to breathe easily for a time. May it be so. -- mistah charley, ph.d.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbasjy2_IY8

Star

4/17/2012 12:28:16 pm

Laura...i can so identify with what your going through..All i could wear was a very large t-shirt...it will get better but it takes time..take some quiet time for your self...

Chickadee

4/19/2012 02:47:23 am

I got shingles in my late 40s, not during a particularly stressful period though I was a little bit run down. I notice the weird rash on Friday and it was rapidly getting worse, so I got online and self-diagnosed. I called my doctor on Saturday at about noon just as she was closing down for a three day weekend. Luckily she prescribed the anti-viral for me over the phone without even seeing me based on the symptoms I described and I was able to start treatment within a few hours. I caught it just in time. The anti-viral only works if you catch the outbreak before it really gets going. I know that it really, really helped make my shingles not so bad although I still had several weeks of pain and exhaustion.

What was unusual about my case it that it was below the waist. Shingles only occurs on one side of the body and usually only above the waist. Mine started on my inner, upper thigh and followed in a broken line up and around my waist to my spine. It did go a little bit into my pubic area, which, believe me, is not anyplace you want to have shingles. I am so lucky I got that anti-viral in time.

There is a vaccination that is usually recommended for people over age 60. I'd say go ahead and get it even if you are younger. Shingles really isn't anything you want in your life.

((hugs)) to Laura. Take care and be well soon!

Ottoline

4/21/2012 08:56:34 am

Just to stay ON Topic: would you rather have shingles (the worst kind) or would you rather live with the guilty conscience that SP and the late Chuck Colson have had, assuming both understood their actions (ok, I know -- not a good assumption).

Here's WashPo today, upon his death: "Charles W. Colson, the Republican political operative who boasted he would “walk over my own grandmother” to ensure the reelection of President Richard M. Nixon and went on to found a worldwide prison fellowship ministry after his conversion to ..." -- and here we have my prediction re SP's future career direction: tele-evangelist! Or e-evangelist!! Like so many crooks before her!!! Except they were prob smarter and more hard-working than our dear SP. But not as cute, esp with her new wig-hats.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/whitehouse/chuck-colson-nixons-dirty-tricks-man-dies-at-80/2012/04/21/gIQAaoOHYT_story.html?tid=pm_politics_pop

4/21/2012 09:11:52 am

Another snip from the WashPo piece: "News of his rebirth was greeted with skepticism and even hilarity by many columnists, including the humorist Art Buchwald, who imagined a prayer session between Mr. Colson and the grandmother he once vowed to run over in the process of helping Nixon.

“Shall we kneel together?” Mr. Colson asked.

“Not me,” his grandmother replied. “I haven’t been able to kneel since you screamed at me, ‘Four more years’ and then put your Oldsmobile into drive.” "

Of course, Colson was a lot brighter and better educated than our SP, but I don't think that's a problem for SP re succeeding in tele-evangelism, nor is her lack of actually attending church, doing good works, supporting any charity, etc. I'm sure she can finesse all those details. "Ah have sinned!!" "Aaaah have sinned!!"

Ottoline

4/21/2012 09:45:21 am

I'm sure you all have noticed:
-- Shailey's web site is gone, and she said Todd introduced her (for work) to one of the bad SS men who got fired
-- Laura blog is no longer on IM's blog roll
-- Scarlott's blog has no entries since Apr 1 (maybe it was an AF joke?)
-- The Game Change movie now seems like yesterday's leftovers.
-- Still no interest in the Palin Baby Hoax, even as Edwards is getting prosecuted for his pecadillo.
-- SP continues to get press for her ridiculous opinions.
-- Romney possible voter fraud (he voted in MA when he prob did not live there) is getting zero attention.

Voter fraud and dirty tricks: the best GOP avenue for defeating Obama.

Ottoline

4/21/2012 09:56:06 am

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=T4FIS1FnOQg

pol

4/22/2012 06:44:30 am

I'm late to this thread and am so awed by all of the shared stories here! Laura, I do hope you're feeling better!

Ottoline -- Laura's blog is still on IM. The list is date driven so Laura's "Shingles" post was bumped down, but her most recent post is right at the top. :-)

Laura Novak

4/24/2012 12:53:57 am

And a belated note to you Molly, with my deepest sympathies. I am so very sorry to read about such a tragedy in your life. And that this post brought it up for you again.

To you all, thank you for sharing your stories. I appreciate the kind words and concern!

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