Shingles

sorry to hear how it has affected your husband, Dinahmo.
similar to the person i know.

My DH had shingles 4 years ago. Being a Saturday we went to A & E and they prescribed some medication. Unfortunately, although the rash didn't spread very far along his upper arm the damage done to his nerves was severe. He had the pain first, before any rash and so we thought he'd damaged some muscles.

I have written about this before, on an earlier thread but some of you may not have read that one. He is still suffering from pain all the time. Sometimes it's so debilitating that he just sits in an armchair with one of his tens machines, cold compresses etc. He takes Lyrica at the moment which is an anti-depressant. Sometimes it works but not every day. He also uses "natural" methods occasionally.

So be careful.

I caught chickenpox as a child after attending a chickenpox party. Those were popular back then. Probably a good idea to get it over and done with. We could go back to school once the blisters had crusted over.

a previous poster has reminded me why i didn't go get shingles vax: £400.
my recent memory is poor.
i had already researched the matter.

thanks for the information, Aveline.
probably i didn't have chickenpox then.
but i still wonder how in the past, no internet etc parents, ordinary people would know which disease it was, if they didn't see a doctor.
it didn't seem to be an issue from what i remember.
unless ill enough to need doctor, if a child had a rash they stayed off school. that was all. no diagnosis.
obviously if they got v ill that was different.
then there was medical involvement.

Forgot to mention my oh came down with it three months after me. Large itchy rash down his back but not much pain also prescribed Aciclovir.

Apols it was Aciclovir I was prescribed 5 tablets a day every few hours for a week. Small rash took a long time to go.

sorry hard aphsia hard to communicate

worked for me

this workeed ofr mr/i could not get the vax
natualpath doctor gave this to me cleared it in less than a week
www.beautyepic.com/tea-tree-oil-for-shingles/

I had it 3 yrs ago. It started with a pain on left side from shoulder to ribs and under breastbone. It got worse over the week before I saw GP. However he diagnosed a pulled muscle without examining. I wouldnt accept diagnosis and told him to look. Immediately said shingles however the rash on back of shoulder was small (not much bigger than a 50p) was prescribed Activir. The pain didn't go for a long time (weeks) and the only relief was from hw bottle. My rash didn't spread much probably doubled in size.

Thank you everyone for sharing your experiences. I was given amitiyptyline for the nerve pain I'm having. No rash as yet, but gp gave me a prescription of acyclovir anti viral tablets and told me to take one five times a day when the rash comes. I am managing so far with the pain. I looked into getting the vaccination when this is over but I would have to pay for it, the cost over £400 at Boots. There are two doses which are given two months apart. My question now is can a blood test reveal if you are immune to chickenpox, as I'm worried about my children catching shingles from me as they haven't had chickenpox to my knowledge. Thanks in advance for any advice on this.

I think I had shingles and pneumonia done at the same time with no side effects. The only time I’ve ever had a reaction to a vaccine was a few years ago when I was very tired for a few days after a flu jab. I used to be against having more than one vaccine done at a time but these days I have anything they want to give me to save having to go back! I do make sure that I’m not feeling run down at the time, though.

I had the vaccination two weeks ago. No side effects whatsoever. It's the only vaccination I've had where there wasn't any bruising or discomfort on the arm at all.
I had shingles some years ago, on a camping trip to France, so there was a delay getting the tablets as we were in the process of travelling back. I hope I never get it again.

I had a very mild case of shingles 2 years ago . It started with 2 small itchy patches on my left side ,upper torso . I thought it was spider bites , but the itching became extremely intense and wouldn’t go away . Then I developed sharp intermittent like stabbing pains all around the area where the rash was and my skin there was super sensitive. Went to docs and did a swab , definitely shingles . He prescribed me some medication but I cannot remember what it was . It still took a few weeks for the sensitive skin and the stabbing pains to go away . The rash actually took about six months to clear up and fade, but it wasn’t really itcy anymore . I can only imagine if someone had it all over their body it would be an awful terrible experience. Mine wasn’t good but it wasn’t any way near the worst, just 2 small patches .Thankfully though I made a full recovery .

No, Ginny42, none at all. Mine was administered during lockdown in May, 2020, just after my 70th birthday. I had to drive on to the surgery car park and position my car by a gazebo, under which a nurse waited with the vaccine which I received in my right arm by extending it through the car window!!

The surgery has called me for the vaccine. Anyone had a bad reaction to the vaccine?

There are two vaccines, live and the two dose dead. Most are only being offered the live vaccine as it is far cheaper. It is only 51% effective and gives protection for 10 years.

I am booked in next week, 51% is being better than nothing

welbeck chickenpox is characterised by large fluid filled vesicles -huge itchy lumps. You'd know if you'd had them. I had some in my hair as well as elsewhere. Really horrible. When I got it again as an adult I felt very tired and ill with it.

i'm going to look up getting the jab privately.
i knew several people who had it, very badly affected, one had nerve pain for months, nothing really eased it, and her health nosedived thereafter.

i've no idea if i ever had chicken pox, how would i know.
unless blood samples were taken.
and they weren't. didn't go doctor.
had one childhood disease that i can remember, but no one knew which. probably measles.

I had chickenpox twice. Once when I was a child and again when I was 23. Shouldn't have been possible but it happened. Verified by doctors.

Also, many people think that you can catch shingles from shingles or shingles from chickenpox. This is not true, as my gp told me. You can, however, catch chickenpox from shingles. I had shingles in my twenties after my first child was born. My middle child, believe it or not, had shingles when he was six, having had chickenpox when he was a year old. My daughter, our youngest child, caught chickenpox from her brother’s shingles. She was three at the time and had not been born when her older brothers had chickenpox.

Sounds awful. DH recently had his vaccination against it but I'm not old enough yet. Fingers crossed I keep avoiding it. You all seem to have had a rotten time with it.

Might add that I still put my dose of shingles down to being very tired and run down, after a week of emergency childcare for an under 2 while the small baby was in ICU, followed immediately by a stinking cold. So my immune system was hardly up to scratch.

My dose started on a Good Friday, so I couldn’t see the GP until the Tuesday. I had achey, throbbing pain in the kidney area - didn’t notice a rash until I was actually at the GP - she took one look and said shingles. TBH it was something of a relief - I’d been imagining kidney cancer.

She gave me anti virals and told me to get co-codamol from the chemist - didn’t give me a prescription.
I felt rough, achey and tender for a couple of weeks, but it was generally a pretty mild case, thank goodness.

MayBee70

If anyone does suspect that they have shingles please try to get anti virals from a GP asap. And if you’re given a prescription get it and start on it as quickly as possible.

I wasn't taken seriously when I suggested it might be shingles I had. The pains in my head were so severe that I had to go into A&E twice in the space of a couple of days, but when I asked if it might be shingles, I was told no and told to take paracetamol (which did absolutely nothing to help at all). By the time my own doctor finally agreed that yes, it did sound like shingles, it was too late to have anti virals and I basically had to put up with the pain for weeks on end until it finally subsided just a week or so ago.