Shingles Disease

Shingles Stories

Written by Barbara Messner

Shingles is a disease that has a variety of symptoms and can affect people in varying ways and to different degrees of severity. This article will focus on a few of those stories. Shingles is a very diverse disease. It can affect ten people and each one of them will have a varied story to tell as far as the amount of rash or blisters, where the rash or blisters occurred, the amount of pain, how long the pain lasted, etc. About Shingles If you’ve had Chickenpox, you can get Shingles. Those sixty and over are more prone to the disease, but it can strike anyone. With flu-like symptoms that include aches and pains, and the telltale small blisters or a rash, this disease is highly contagious until the rash and/or watery blisters scab over. The pain of Shingles can last long after the rash disappears. You can get Shingles more than once. Talk to your doctor if you think you have Shingles, it’s important to do so within 72 hours of getting symptoms. There are regular medicines available and natural treatments that can be recommended. Everyone’s story and symptoms are different. To give you a good example of this I will share two very different stories with you. The stories are of two women and their personal experience with Shingles. I have known both of these women for over two years. I won’t use their names, but will refer to them as Anna and Betty. Anna’s Story Anna is now 83 years of age. She had the disease when she was around 65 years old and yes, she had Chickenpox when she was younger. It started with what she first thought was a pimple up high on her cheek, close to the temple. But she had extreme pain in that general area, so much pain that she thought it was a tooth problem. She went to her dentist, he said there was no sign of a problem with her tooth, but ended up pulling it anyway. He advised her to go to a doctor if the pain didn’t subside. The tremendous pain did not go away. She went to the doctor, and by this time the pimple- sized bump was a blister. The blister was in reality a Shingle. It was the only Shingle she had. But according to her, that was enough. She can’t imagine having a whole row of them, or having them all over her body. Her one Shingle caused pain that was so terrific she remembers it with a shudder even today. It scabbed over and with some pain medication she managed to make it through for the few weeks it took to heal and go away. She has not been bothered with Shingles since. Betty’s Story Betty has a much different story. She is about 81 years old now. It was nearly a year and a half ago when she had her outbreak of Shingles. Betty also had Chickenpox earlier in her life. But Betty broke out in a rash that turned to blisters all over her head. They were in her hair, on her forehead, around her ears…all over her head. She also had a few scattered on her back. She had excruciating pain. She went to the doctor and had started his recommended treatment. She was home with her daughter when she started to get up from a chair and fell over, dizzy and disoriented. Her daughter took her to the hospital and she was admitted for several weeks. The sores and rash eventually dried up and the pain went away. She went home but ‘Betty’ soon started having symptoms of what was thought to be Alzheimer’s. She got worse rapidly, couldn’t drive her car anymore, and had to move in with her daughter. All this happened within a very short period of time. Betty went from being a highly active, very intelligent woman to having hardly any memory, not being able to care for herself all within three to four months. Soon the diagnosis changed. Doctors decided that Betty didn’t have Alzheimer’s. They decided her illness was due to Shingles. Shingles caused her rapid deterioration. They affected her brain, causing memory loss, balance problems, her motor skills-walking, writing, eating, etc. It could have killed her. It hasn’t yet, but neither has she gotten any better. Her symptoms and condition will continue for the rest of her life. Shingles Rap Up Shingles isn’t something to ignore. With these two cases in mind, one can come to the decision pretty quickly to do whatever little we can do to escape this horror. Unfortunately, this isn’t much. There is no prevention. It helps if your immune system is strong. Eat well, take your vitamins and get good exercise.  And if you think you have it. Go to the doctor.

 

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