Shingles, any one?

[quarky]

My rashes are on chest and back; same side. Simply can't find comfy position for sleep.
Also have noticed flares in the pain, with worst between 3 a.m. and 8 a.m. I find that peculiar.

Not a happy camper. On the bright side, I likely won't be contributing my usual barrage of pointless, slightly off-topic and off-color posts.

Boy, I sure hope god isn't punishing me for my frequent blasphemy.
I always thought he enjoyed my blasphemy.

 

[Monketi Ghost]

Maybe you had a mild exposure and it never amounted to overt spots.

That seems like the answer.

Odd though; neither myself nor my sister who I grew up with ever had an overt chickenpox case.

And my experience with shingles was once, fifteen years ago, and never again since. Lucky, I suppose!

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Boy, I sure hope god isn't punishing me for my frequent blasphemy.
I always thought he enjoyed my blasphemy.

Nah, it's just that she too has recently come down with shingles, and is doing a bit of arbitrary smoting.

 

[uruk]

If you like the shingles try the gout. And try them together. Nothing like a cocktail of shear non-ending agony.

 

[PogoPedant]

If you like the shingles try the gout. And try them together. Nothing like a cocktail of shear non-ending agony.

I had a relatively mild case of the shingles last year, during a particularly stressfull period. The Norwegian word for it transliterates to HELLFIRE.

I also have gout, which I've experienced as far worse, but I'm controlling it and haven't had an attack in years.

 

[Walrus32]

As a general rule, the younger you are the less painful are (is?) shingles and there is less chance of developing post-herpetic neuralgia. I had my case at age 58 and the junior dermatologist was totally puzzled. I had no pain at all. The senior dermatologist took one look and had one word- "Zoster".

 

[fuelair]

This is not a roofing thread.

I've got freaking shingles!
What a hassle!

Not seeking medical advice so much as commiseration.
I was late in taking action. I thought the rash was from a mess of tick bites I had in the same area as the rash. My googling told me that the anti-viral meds were fairly pointless after 72 hours, but I went to the doc anyway, mostly because of the absurd pain.

He prescribed the anti-viral meds anyway.
What a weird virus!

Its the same virus as chicken pox, btw, making a late in life resurgence.

Ice seems to help more than anything else I can come up with, but I'd like to hear any one's tales of how they coped with this. I've been under a small barrage of folk remedies from well meaning friends of the woo-ish persuasion.

Pre-thanks for advice or merely sharing the misery.

Right or left side ? Oh, once they are gone you will find the areas where the sores were will likely be numb for a few years (my numbness from 2004 is almost vanished now).

 

[quarky]

Right or left side ? Oh, once they are gone you will find the areas where the sores were will likely be numb for a few years (my numbness from 2004 is almost vanished now).

Left.

Oh crap! Half of my penis is on my left side.

Crude jokes aside, I've made an anecdotal observation over the years:

I've nearly always got something that hurts. Gout; corns; squished discs, etc.
Yet, whenever something like this (shingles, for now) pops up, the other pains take a hiatus.

Its as if my pain sensor system can only handle so much at a time.
Has anyone else ever noticed this?

Or is this merely god trying to hurt me and confuse me simultaneously?

(I am devoutly religious, as some of you may have noticed.)

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

That seems like the answer.

Odd though; neither myself nor my sister who I grew up with ever had an overt chickenpox case.

And my experience with shingles was once, fifteen years ago, and never again since. Lucky, I suppose!

I believe about 30% of cases of chicken pox are without a rash.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

As a general rule, the younger you are the less painful are (is?) shingles and there is less chance of developing post-herpetic neuralgia. I had my case at age 58 and the junior dermatologist was totally puzzled. I had no pain at all. The senior dermatologist took one look and had one word- "Zoster".

The relationship is with the competency of the immune system. The elderly debilitated person does have a higher risk of post-herpetic neuralgia and a more severe case of shingles, but 'debilitated' is the key. A very healthy elderly person has less risk than a sickly younger person. Obviously more elderly folks are debilitated, however, so it is true that there is an association with age.

In all cases, severe shingles, including complications, are relatively rare considering almost everyone on the planet has been infected with the chicken pox virus by the time they are 30 years old. That will change now with the vaccine. And since it is a live vaccine, we'll probably also see a different pattern of shingles.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Left.

Oh crap! Half of my penis is on my left side.

Crude jokes aside, I've made an anecdotal observation over the years:

I've nearly always got something that hurts. Gout; corns; squished discs, etc.
Yet, whenever something like this (shingles, for now) pops up, the other pains take a hiatus.

Its as if my pain sensor system can only handle so much at a time.
Has anyone else ever noticed this?

Or is this merely god trying to hurt me and confuse me simultaneously?

(I am devoutly religious, as some of you may have noticed.)

Sounds like you should consider distraction as an effective means of reducing your pain. Maybe you are paying too much voluntary attention to it. I'm not saying your pain isn't significant, but people do tend to either focus on pain or ignore it. If you can ignore one pain while focusing on another, maybe you can ignore both if you focus on something else.

 

[quarky]

Sounds like you should consider distraction as an effective means of reducing your pain. Maybe you are paying too much voluntary attention to it. I'm not saying your pain isn't significant, but people do tend to either focus on pain or ignore it. If you can ignore one pain while focusing on another, maybe you can ignore both if you focus on something else.

I like that and mostly agree. Its when pain wakes me up at night that I have the most trouble ignoring it. The shingles seem to "go off" at 3:30 a.m.

I believe its starting to slack off some, though. I'm hoping it leaves my skin too tough for insect bites. That would be nice.

Did I mention that one of the rash patterns looks exactly like Nixon?

 

[leon_heller]

I don't have shingles but I have very painful neuralgia at the top of my right foot, probably a side effect of drugs I've taken in the past for Crohn's disease. It comes and goes, usually passing off after an hour or so, but is very unpleasant - a sort of intense burning pain. I would imagine that shingles causes a similar pain, as it also affects the peripheral nerves.

Seeing the previous post, perhaps someone has had the image of Jesus Christ in their skin lesions.

 

[quarky]

I don't have shingles but I have very painful neuralgia at the top of my right foot, probably a side effect of drugs I've taken in the past for Crohn's disease. It comes and goes, usually passing off after an hour or so, but is very unpleasant - a sort of intense burning pain. I would imagine that shingles causes a similar pain, as it also affects the peripheral nerves.

Seeing the previous post, perhaps someone has had the image of Jesus Christ in their skin lesions.

Good point about the lesions.

God knows i tried.

My girlfriend at the time, Betty-Jo-Lu, conspired with yours truly to "paint" the "last supper" on my back, with poison ivy tincture i had made and put into a turkey baster.

I thought it was a dang masterpiece, but the National Enquirer thought it a bit "much"; that it stretched credibility too far; that a less complex image was more "user friendly" and so forth.

Same with bigfoot.

A blurry image is better than a detailed urinalysis.



Horrible truth is, I used to sell freelance stuff to magazines.

I quit about the time i figured out how to publish lies, and why that's where the money was.