Will you tell us about your experience with shingles the skin disease?

Shingles, or herpes zoster, is a painful skin rash caused by the chickenpox virus. It usually starts as pain, tingling, or burning on one side of the body and can progress to very painful blisters on the skin.

My mom has had shingles and will have a flare up, usually on the right side of her torso, when she’s really stressed out. I had vulvar pain that went unexplained for several months. When I explained the sensation to my mother, she was convinced it was shingles. It wasn’t, but knowing that’s what she feels with shingles makes me glad my problem was treatable. Just feeling clothes touch the area was extremely painful. Ouch.

As for advice, stress relief exercises as a preventative measure if stress causes a flare up.

I had an outbreak when I was quite young. My skin (also on the right side of my torso^^) was very painful, and I happened to mention it in front of my best friend who is a geriatric nurse. As soon as she saw my torso, she said “Oh, that’s shingles! Go to the doctor right away.” I was lucky that she was around to diagnose me so early, because there is a medicine that’s fairly effective if you start it early in the outbreak. I didn’t suffer for months and months, like some people do. Treat it early!

I’ve never had it and can’t remember whether I had chicken pox, but my mother put the fear of God into me about shingles many years ago. After her bout with it she told me the pain was so unbelievably intense there were moments she wanted to kill herself. (Coincidentally, I got a shingles vaccine shot just yesterday.)

I started getting shingles in my early 20’s. I get it on my right butt cheek, not a very large area, about 1.5–2 inches in diameter. The first outbreak was the worst, lasted for many weeks and the worst symptom was itching like crazy. My doctor did not diagnose it correctly! Just another thing I can bitch about when it comes to doctors. Several months later I was at a dermatologist and it came up for some reason and he said to me sounds herpetic and if it comes back in the same place you will know for sure. When it did, I had it cultured to confirm it. So he diagnosed it without ever seeing it, and my idiot doctor who saw it diagnosed it incorrectly.

I still itch when I get episodes of it, I wouldn’t describe it as pain, although it does feel inflammed, so I guess for some people that would be described as pain. I’ve gone through many outbreaks without taking medication, but the medication does shorten the duration of the outbreak and reduce the symptoms in general for me. If I take the meds when the area first starts to get red, I can stop it from a full eruption.

On and off I feel the area heat up so to speak, and sometimes it goes away, and sometimes it proceeds to be an outbreak.

The first year I had a couple episodes. Then it died down. Then a few years later three in one year. Then nothing for 5 or so years. It goes like that. Right now I had three this past year. It sucks. I actually feel a tingle on the right side of my back lately that is the same sort of feeling, but nothing significant has happened. I hope it doesn’t.

Argh, I got it when I was about 29 and like @JLeslie I was not correctly diagnosed. It’s extremely painful. I’ve also had outbreaks several times since then, the latest being earlier this year and, for me at least, it seems to start with an itch that won’t go away. It’s generally concentrated on my abdomen and my back. It’s horrible and sometimes embarrassing.

@livelaughlove21 I’m a firm believer that my recurrences have been stress related, so hearing about your mom doesn’t surprise me. I wish I had a stress reliever to not only do away with this, but with the sleepwalking!

@laurenkem How can it be?! I am so sick of doctors not dagnosing such common things. Now that I know what shingles is like, I could diagnose it on someone, or know enough to suspect it and have it tested. Just another thing for me to be annoyed about concerning doctors.

I got them for the first time last November. It was one of the first things I remembered/noticed when I got out of the hospital. I still wonder if the hospitalization had anything to do with it.
I noticed this discomfort under my right breast and around to my back. I wouldn’t call it extremely painful, just extremely uncomfortable. I ignored it.
Then, six months later it came back but on the left side. I went to the Dr. for something completely unrelated, and mentioned it to him. He said it was shingles. So he gave meds and eventually it went away.
I’m supposed to get a shingles shot, but I haven’t yet.

@Dutchess_III A girlfriend of mine sat next to a gentleman on a flight who had shingles and she came down with it shortly after. Her first time ever. The belief in the medical community is you can’t catch shingles, but my girlfriend really questions. I think it is possible too. I’m not sure why medical science believes it isn’t contagious, I don’t know ifnthey have done studies exposing people.

My doctor told me the only risk was exposing the kids to it and giving them chicken pox. I don’t know though…..

It was miserable. Get the vaccine if you haven’t had it!

@Dutchess_III Yes, that is a risk. I wrote on that chicken pox Q that I have joked about renting myself out for chicken pox parties.

LOLL!!! Funny thing is, I don’t remember ever getting chicken pox.

@JLeslie The more I read about other people’s experiences, the more I wonder. I was originally diagnosed with “just a rash” and then later with chicken pox, which I had already had (and naively believed I couldn’t get again). The latter diagnosis was by an Army doctor who wanted to quarantine me for 3 weeks, but the first hubs and I lived off base, so he let me go home and just told me to stay away from everyone. Perhaps it really is contagious???

@laurenkem Quarantine you? That seems extreme. He’s what I don’t know even if we only consider chicken pox being given to you by someone with shingles…is it contagious through the air? Or, does the person have to have touched their shingles and then get the virus on the other person like regular herpes? When I have shingles I am super careful to wash my hands, I don’t go anywhere near babies, etc.

The military is more vaccinated than any other group I would bet. No one is going to be catching chicken pox on base. But, it would be interesting to know if the doctor thought people can catch shingles.

People walk around with shingles all the time and no one knows.

Thing is, in your case, what you wrote doesn’t make sense to me. Chicken pox and shingles look nothing alike. You don’t mistake one for the other.

Well, shingles is a mutated form of chicken pox. I think it can give you chicken pox, but not shingles per se. Where the hell is Rarebear?! Why is there never a doctor around when you need one?

@Dutchess_III It’s not a mutated form. It’s the same virus that has taken residence in the spinal nerve roots.

Ok, but can it be contagious in the form in shingles, or contagious in the form of chickenpox? Like, if one of the twins (9 months old) came into contact with a blister, they’d get chicken pox, not shingles…until later?

If a person has never had chicken pox then they get chicken pox if they come in contact with chicken pox or shingles. It is extremely contagious. They are both caused by the same vericella virus, the only thing that is different is how the body “shows” the disease. You always get chicken pox first whether you caught varicella from someone with chicken pox or someone with shingles.

The only sort of exception is there have been some cases of shingles reported shortly after getting the vaccine. Very rare though.

@Dutchess_III Sort of.
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/shingles/detail_shingles.htm#240893223

Thanks for the info @Rarebear.

I was diagnosed with shingles when I was 20 years old and I’ve been living with it for 22 years now. I average about 2–3 outbreaks per year, but the number was higher when I was younger. The pain is terrible and it usually lasts about a week for me.

The best thing you can do is eliminate stress from your life as much as possible. My outbreaks are worse when I’m dealing with a lot of stress.