Shingles vaccine?

[dann]

Had all the childhood diseases as a kid in the late 50s and early 60s before the vaccines arrived, and was hospitalised with almost all of them. Measles very nearly killed me. Nowadays I take every shot I can get my hands on (or a nurse's hands, rather). Had whooping cough as a child, and then again about ten years ago, which was awful; spent hours in the bathroom every night vomiting and coughing at the same time, so I got that vaccine as well a year or so ago, and have had my two shingrix shots. What I will never understand is why people seem to think it’s better to be ill for days on end, rather than take the vaccine. Being ill is no fun at all, and even if it won't necessarily kill you, it might well cause quite a lot of damage to you as well as to others. Besides, the immunity from having had the diseases is not better or stronger than that from the vaccines. As far as I know at least.

Probably not, but even if it were, it would be better to have at least some immunity before getting the disease itself. As in the case of C19 ...
I just googled "vaccine-induced immunity". The top result was this one:

Is immunity from vaccines better than “natural” immunity? (HHS, Dec 19, 2024)
Vaccines can induce a better immune response.
For some diseases, including HPV, the vaccines that prevent them lead to a better immune response than natural infection.

However, what you get now if you use the link is this:

Page Not Found​

We're sorry, but there is no www.hhs.gov page that matches your entry. Possible reasons:

• The page may have been moved,
• It no longer exists, or
• The address may have been typed incorrectly.

Thanks to RFK Jr., I assume!

I suppose it's that "natural" idiocy? Never had any side effects other than mild flu symptoms from any of my many shots (have lost count of the covid ones. 7, I think).

The natural idiocy is one of many possibilities. Toxic masculinity is another. 'I'm a big strong man, and vaccines are for pussies'. (It works particularly well if the actual reason is trypanophobia.) Nowadays, many people won't get the vaccines because it's frowned upon in the MAGA cult.

 

[dann]

I think I'm just lucky. I've not had significant side effects from any vaccination beyond soreness from the needle; even when I had Covid itself it was milder than a cold.

Pre- or post-?
My experience was the same - post-: Pfizer-BioNTech and Soberana plus.

 

[sackett]

Got my Covid booster AND my shingles shot last week. Site was more tender & painful than usual -- and I loved every minute of it. Probably didn't need a shingles jab, since 1) I had the disease decades ago, and 2) I recall being vaccinated for it some years back. But I'll be damned if I'll rely on anything as hazy as a a recollection.

I like to regale my doctors with Back In My Day stories about the needles we had in earlier times: so big you could look down the muzzle. They think I'm kidding.

ETA, @zooterkin: I too had Covid, a new strain for which there was no vaccine. Thanks to all my boosters I'm sure, like you I had a short, easy dance with the devil . But I had just turned 80, and my team of sawbones nearly went off the rails hustling me through the ER and then off for a newly introduced infusion treatment, all the time masked and segregated from humans. Damn right I went along with it. Nobody has the right to endanger public health.

 

[varwoche]

Had all the childhood diseases as a kid in the late 50s and early 60s before the vaccines arrived, and was hospitalised with almost all of them. Measles very nearly killed me. Nowadays I take every shot I can get my hands on (or a nurse's hands, rather). Had whooping cough as a child, and then again about ten years ago, which was awful; spent hours in the bathroom every night vomiting and coughing at the same time, so I got that vaccine as well a year or so ago, and have had my two shingrix shots. What I will never understand is why people seem to think it’s better to be ill for days on end, rather than take the vaccine. Being ill is no fun at all, and even if it won't necessarily kill you, it might well cause quite a lot of damage to you as well as to others. Besides, the immunity from having had the diseases is not better or stronger than that from the vaccines. As far as I know at least. I suppose it's that "natural" idiocy? Never had any side effects other than mild flu symptoms from any of my many shots (have lost count of the covid ones. 7, I think).

Whooping cough is just awful. Mine lasted for months, undiagnosed. My symptoms may as well have been copied from a textbook yet my doctors were utterly clueless. "Probably an allergy". (I finally changed doctors and then I was diagnosed.)

 

[Helen]

Whooping cough is just awful. Mine lasted for months, undiagnosed. My symptoms may as well have been copied from a textbook yet my doctors were utterly clueless. "Probably an allergy". (I finally changed doctors and then I was diagnosed.)

It is very persistent; my coughing/whooping fits kept happening for about 6 months. I was lucky enough to have a really nice doctor who listened to my self-diagnosis and tested me. It can be life-threatening to newborns who aren’t old enough to be vaccinated yet, so I spent the first few weeks in splendid isolation. This was about a decade ago, and it was thought of as uncommon (which I doubt), but nowadays there are reports of fairly frequent outbreaks, so you and I were obviously the trendsetting avant-garde. Take the vaccine, people, if you haven't; coughing and vomiting around the clock might sound fun, I know, but you do tend to grow a little bored with it after a couple of months.

 

[dann]

I suppose it's that "natural" idiocy?

I'll just revisit this one again because I came across this one on X:

BGimpl on X, April 4, 2025
Cant believe people get attacked for preferring what nature gave us

 

[novaphile]

Whooping cough is just awful. Mine lasted for months, undiagnosed. My symptoms may as well have been copied from a textbook yet my doctors were utterly clueless. "Probably an allergy". (I finally changed doctors and then I was diagnosed.)

Similar experience to my brother.

He'd also had the cough for months before they found out what it was.

On his recommendation, I sought a vaccine, and was given the DPT vaccine.
(I was due for a tetanus booster and the diphtheria was a freebie.)

 

[dann]

The link provided by Rolfe is interesting for sure, and it does suggest at least that there's more research to be done here to determine if there really is anything more than correlation, and if so what it is.

The problem with the link is that it's a review of a two-year-old pre-print of current study.

Eric Topol on X, April 5, 2025
A major @Nature paper this week found a significant decline in dementia after an outdated Shingles vaccine.I've reviewed the study and many other relevant ones in a new Ground Truths (link in profile*)

* The link in his profile to his Substack Ground Truths.

Eric Topol on X, April 5, 2025
A Table from the post.

Geldsetzer Lab Recent Discovery (Maya Adam on YouTube, April 2, 2025 - 3:02 min.)
Using unique natural experiments that avoid common biases, Pascal Geldsetzer and his team found that shingles vaccination has a large protective effect for dementia. The first study from his group was published in Nature in April 2025: https://www.nature.com/articles/s4158.... His team is now trying to raise funds from private foundations and philanthropy to conclusively test this link in a randomized clinical trial. They want to trial a version of the old live-attenuated shingles vaccine, which is no longer being manufactured. If you are interested in helping to fund this effort, please reach out to pgeldsetzer@stanford.edu

 

[zooterkin]

Pre- or post-?
My experience was the same - post-: Pfizer-BioNTech and Soberana plus.

It was post at least one round of vaccines. I tested positive on the day I was due to have my third, I think, jab. So, yes, the vaccination almost certainly reduced the severity, but I suffered a lot less than my other half who had it at the same time.

The shingrix vaccine was in my left arm, and that's been fine. My right arm got a bit tender after a day, where I had the pneumonia jab, but that's wearing off now.

 

[bruto]

Got my Covid booster AND my shingles shot last week. Site was more tender & painful than usual -- and I loved every minute of it. Probably didn't need a shingles jab, since 1) I had the disease decades ago, and 2) I recall being vaccinated for it some years back. But I'll be damned if I'll rely on anything as hazy as a a recollection.

I like to regale my doctors with Back In My Day stories about the needles we had in earlier times: so big you could look down the muzzle. They think I'm kidding.
ETA, @zooterkin: I too had Covid, a new strain for which there was no vaccine. Thanks to all my boosters I'm sure, like you I had a short, easy dance with the devil . But I had just turned 80, and my team of sawbones nearly went off the rails hustling me through the ER and then off for a newly introduced infusion treatment, all the time masked and segregated from humans. Damn right I went along with it. Nobody has the right to endanger public health.

I'm with you there, but will see you and raise you a set of white cell pheresis needles! Back in the 70's when I was giving white cells for my sister, there was a process (no longer used, I think) of pumping one's blood from one arm, through a set of filters, and back into the other. An hour and a half of this, and you'd have a bunch of white cells. It was discontinued because it turned out the process of getting them out of the filters was damaging them, reducing the effectiveness. Anyway, I did this for a couple of sessions of a week or more, and those needles, were, I kid you not, about the size of football inflating needles. A little bit sharper, but they still had practically to hammer them in, especially after I got a bunch of scar tissue from previous jabs. I looked like a junkie with tracks for a few years. Oddly over the intervening 50 or so years, my veins have shrunk back and where I once had big easy to find ones, now they have to hunt to get a little blood sample. But fortunately, the needles are now tiny and very sharp.

 

[dann]

Better still! It's not just for anymore! It's good for , too!

Shingles vaccine lowers the risk of heart disease for up to eight years (European Society of Cardiology/EurekaAlert, May 5, 2025)
People who are given a vaccine for shingles have a 23% lower risk of cardiovascular events, including stroke, heart failure, and coronary heart disease, according to a study of more than a million people published in the European Heart Journal [1] today (Tuesday).
The protective effect of the vaccine lasts for up to eight years and is particularly pronounced for men, people under the age of 60 and those with unhealthy lifestyles, such as smoking, drinking alcohol and being inactive.
The study was led by Professor Dong Keon Yon from the Kyung Hee University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea. He said: “Shingles causes a painful rash and can lead to serious complications, especially in older adults and those with weak immune systems. Previous research shows that, without vaccination, about 30% of people may develop shingles in their lifetime.
“In addition to the rash, shingles has been linked to a higher risk of heart problems, so we wanted to find out if getting vaccinated could lower this risk.”
The study included 1,271,922 people aged 50 or older living in South Korea.
(...)
The study showed that among people who received the vaccine, there was a 23% lower risk of cardiovascular events overall, with a 26% lower risk of major cardiovascular events (a stroke, heart attack or death from heart disease), a 26% lower risk of heart failure and a 22% lower risk of coronary heart disease.

Notice that it's a study of the old shingles vaccine, not Shingrix.

I saw it here first: Vaccine mod helvedesild lader også til at beskytte mod hjertesygdomme (Videnskab.dk, May 18, 2025)

 

[ahhell]

Man, I've got to get my shingles vaccine, seems like a miracle drug.

 

[bruto]

Man, I've got to get my shingles vaccine, seems like a miracle drug.

Having known a couple of people who had shingles in later life, I'd consider it a miracle drug if it just does what it's supposed to. The rest is a lagniappe.

 

[dann]

Lower risk of dementia with AS01-adjuvanted vaccination against shingles and respiratory syncytial virus infections (Nature, June 25, 2025)
AS01-adjuvanted shingles (herpes zoster) vaccination is associated with a lower risk of dementia, but the underlying mechanisms are unclear. In propensity-score matched cohort studies with 436,788 individuals, both the AS01-adjuvanted shingles and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines, individually or combined, were associated with reduced 18-month risk of dementia. No difference was observed between the two AS01-adjuvanted vaccines, suggesting that the AS01 adjuvant itself plays a direct role in lowering dementia risk.
(...)
Two non-mutually exclusive hypotheses can explain the added protection provided by the adjuvanted vaccine compared to the live vaccine (which has no adjuvant): shingles might increase the risk of dementia, and the adjuvanted vaccine would therefore better protect against dementia through its greater efficacy; and/or the AS01 adjuvant might itself provide some protection against dementia as suggested by mouse models.

 

[dann]

Having known a couple of people who had shingles in later life, I'd consider it a miracle drug if it just does what it's supposed to. The rest is a lagniappe.

It's the first time I hear or see the word, but I've only spent two weeks in Louisiana.

 

[Norman Alexander]

We got our Shingrix vaxx before we started a lot of international travelling. Do NOT want shingles or any other easily-acquired virus, thanks all the same. FYI, Shingrix is two injections a week apart. The first does give you a whack for a day or two. The second has almost zero effect.

 

[jadebox]

My wife had shingles flair up in multiple areas which they say is rare. I took her to the walk-in clinic because I thought she had messed with poison oak. One of her arms was red and painful. The doctor quickly diagnosed it as shingles then noticed a small outbreak on my wife's face near her eye. She was given antiviral medicine and we had to watch the area on her face since it came be quite serious if it spreads to the eye.

I think the first time I ever heard of shingles was years earlier when a younger coworker got it on his abdomen. It caused him extreme pain. Fortunately, the outbreak wasn't as painful for my wife and the shingles on her face didn't get in her eye.

Of course, we both went in for vaccinations shortly afterwards.

 

[zooterkin]

We got our Shingrix vaxx before we started a lot of international travelling. Do NOT want shingles or any other easily-acquired virus, thanks all the same. FYI, Shingrix is two injections a week apart. The first does give you a whack for a day or two. The second has almost zero effect.

They're given a bit further apart here; I had my first dose in April, still waiting to be called for the second. And I agree I don't want the shingles, my partner had it a couple of years ago, and I can do without that!

 

[Puppycow]

I had like 6 weeks between my first and second shot. (Maybe more; my memory is a bit hazy.)

 

[Pixel42]

I had a single injection in 2023 and was told it was one and done, i.e. I would never need another one. So I presumed it was not Shingrix but Zostavax, and that was me done. So I was surprised to receive a text a few days ago from my surgery, inviting me to make an appointment for a shingles jab. I've looked up Zostavax and it seems it's only good for three years, but even so this seems early for a booster, and it's obviously very late if it was actually Shingrix.

I never turn down a vaccine so I've made an appointment, but I will make sure to tell the nurse when I get there that I had one two years ago. I'm wondering if they've decided to give the Shingrix one to everyone, even if they've already had the Zostavax.