Shingles Shots, More Than Just a Good Idea to Some

April 27, 2012

Shingles Shots

Thousands of people drive past drugstores such as Walgreens every day and see the signs out front that say “Get your flu shot here”. After all the flu is a common everyday sickness that we’ve all gotten at one point or another. Flu shots have become a part of a family’s yearly struggle to stay healthy.

But lately another sign has emerged out front of the same Walgreens that states “Shingles shots here”. Prior to 2 ½ years ago, I would have driven past the signs with a certain comfortable ignorance as to what Shingles really is. I always thought that this was a sickness that old people got and for the most part that was accurate. Much to my misfortune I have found out that ignorance isn’t bliss it can be painful. The story I’m about to share with you is my own. This story is something I wanted to share because the signs for the shingles shot just don’t inform you as to the depth of what you’re dealing with. My purpose for this article is to inform you about what shingles really is and how it can affect your life.

This story, my story is all too real and I am that 5% of people that get in extreme case of shingles. For starters the shingles virus comes from the chickenpox virus so if you had chickenpox when you were a kid the chances are real good you will get shingles as an adult. It’s no longer an old person’s disease; it can affect anyone at any time. When I was five days old I was hit with chickenpox, my sister argues that she remembers me having a second bout of chickenpox, personally I do remember that.

But back on Thanksgiving night of 2009 by life was about to change overnight. After a long Thanksgiving Day of cooking for my family I relaxed in my rocking chair to watch a movie. It was there that I first saw that something was wrong, what looked like three gray spots on my TV screen appeared. As I look around the room I saw that the three gray spots were moving with my eyesight. These were small spots and really were a cause for concern, so shortly after noticing the spots, I went to bed.

The next morning, to my horror, I woke up with one giant gray spot in my right eye. I was totally blind in my right eye and could not see a thing. I went into a panic mode because I didn’t know what was happening to me. I began looking for an eye doctor, which was difficult being the day after Thanksgiving. But I did find a place that would take me in and give me an eye exam. After the exam doctor sat down with me and discussed what he found. My eyesight in my right eye was 20/400, legal blindness. I left I was fine but they were concerned that I may have somehow toward my retina. They referred me to a specialist on Monday so I made the drive hoping to resolve this issue.

The specialist took me in the next day and gave me another vision test with the same results in my right eye. But this time, the results in my left eye came back worse. The day before I was able to read the test pattern on the wall with no problem, in my left eye. But now I could barely read the top four lines. They wanted me to return on Monday to see the specialist in their office because they did not see a torn retina. Needless to say it was a horrible weekend with my eyesight fading fast. Thoughts I had never entertained flooded my brain I began to think that I might not ever see the faces of my grandkids again. This quite frankly scared me to death.

Thanksgiving night I recall walking down the hallway of my home in severe pain. I always had a back problem due to being thrown from the back of a truck and a car accident. But this pain was more intense, unlike anything I had ever felt. I remember walking down the hallway leaning against the wall sliding my way to the bedroom because I could not stand up straight. I stopped to take a nice hot shower and let the hot water run on my low back, like I normally did. The next day I woke up with that extreme pain in my little back and I noticed that I had slight blistering in that area. I thought I had just let the water get too hot which caused the blister. Monday morning I went into the doctor’s office because by then the blistering had gone from my low back, along my left waistline, around my hip and onto my upper thigh and abdomen. They sensed something was wrong that blistering from hot water would not have continued to spread like it did. So we packed up once again to head to another doctor’s office. Once there, the doctor took me in and in matter of seconds took one look at me and said”you’ve got a nasty case of shingles”. For some reason I was shocked and surprised by this diagnosis. The doctor prescribed the proper medication to begin to reverse this affliction but by time I got the medication, five full days had gone by.

Little did I know the level of pain that I was in for. The blisters grew into massive sores and seemed to take forever to go away. The pain that my body experienced was unbelievable, I had no clue that this sort of pain ever existed. The medication seemed to take forever to kick in. The area that was affected began to swell and turned deep reddish purple. Any sort of contact with anything would cause waves of pain. I had to learn to sleep in one position for the entire night. My bed was made up in a way for my body to lay in one spot and be supported by pillows. I was only getting about an hour or two a night sleep, I would wake up exhausted. My blood pressure began to spike because of the pain. After about a week the medication finally started to kick in and I began to experience some reversal in swelling. But this reversal came way too slow and I endured countless hours of extreme pain.

Once the medication got rid of the virus I was left with the healing process. The sores that had developed were quite large and seemed to take forever to heal. I was unable to put any topical ointment on them to assist in healing because of the pain. All in all, it took over six months for the sores to heal. The worst sore was on my upper left thigh and was the size of my thumb print. The sore was quite deep and seemed to take forever to even scab over. The pain was all day every day I was unable to work, barely able to walk. To go outside was a huge mistake. The cold air hit the open sores and sent waves of pain shaking me to my very core. Life seemed to boil down to an occasional walk around the house only to return to the bedroom.
During this healing process I did as much research as I could to find out more about this disease. I needed to educate myself rather quickly because I wanted to know what I was up against. The friends that I had that contracted shingles never spoke of anything like what I was experiencing. What I found was quite eye-opening.

First off, shingles attacks the nervous system that is why I began to experience high problems because the shingles virus attacked my optic nerve. Another fact about this affliction is that the shingles virus is stored in your spinal column. That’s why I was experiencing so much back pain that fateful Thanksgiving night, the shingles virus was about to hit. This lack of information cost me dearly because to minimize the effects of shingles one must get the virus medication into their system within the first three days otherwise the virus will run its full course like it did with me.

The blisters that I experienced in that state, makes shingles quite contagious. Once the virus medication is taken and begins to work within a few days shingles is no longer contagious. But in reality once shingles hits, there is very little you can do. You are in for a long painful stent and there’s not much you can do. Some photos of the shingles virus show small patches, even a small patches cause extensive pain. To amplify things most, my blood pressure shot up to higher levels than normal because of the pain. The pain seemed to take months to subside. After about three months my eyesight returned to almost normal, but to this day my eyesight is not what it was.

After about six months, the sores began to heal over and I felt that the healing process was well underway. Little did I know that a second battle lies in wait. The scars from the shingles began to fade but the pain didn’t. I was confused by this but through additional research I found that I had been left with nerve damage everywhere the shingles rash had manifested. This type of pain was almost as bad as the pain from shingles itself. The only pain I can compare this to his the type of pain that one experiences when someone has begun to thaw out from frostbite. The nerves in this area have become hypersensitive and anything, soft touch, cold drink of water or even a cool breeze would send shockwaves throughout my body. The entire area where the shingles virus was is numb. With this numbness there is a constant stabbing pain about every five minutes. One would think that this is enough but it’s not. The stabbing pain is coupled with these incredible itching sensations that are deep below the skin.  I’ve learned to keep my fingernails short because once the scratching begins it’s very easy to draw blood and not know it.

After the itching subsides, which will literally drop you to your knees in tears, this incredible burning sensation follows. By time all this subsides is just in time to do it all over again. This happens many times a day and there is no rhyme or reason to how and why it happens. There is no medication to reverse nerve damage, all you can hope for is that your immune system will recover the damage and life can become somewhat normal again. We have two friends who contracted shingles the way I did. One gentleman recovered after six years, the other never did and took his pain to his grave. The medication I take is called gabapentin, a pain blocker. This medication works somewhat and takes the edge off the pain but it’s not without side effects. In my case, the side effects are weight retention and swollen feet and ankles.

Two and a half years into this mess, I wish I could say that I’m getting better but I just don’t feel it. I do feel I’m regaining some of my feeling in the nerve damage area of my low back. Unfortunately this allows me to feel my original back pain that I had from the car accident, this allows me to feel the worst of both worlds. Research also revealed that the body recovers nerve damage at 1 mm per day. So depending on the size of the infliction area this could take years.

Literally overnight my life was turned upside down. I can no longer play or teach tennis which was my way of life and means of income. We lost our house and have had to downsize twice more. Although it’s been 2 and a half years, it seems like five. To amplify things even more, we face all of this with no medical insurance whatsoever. It’s truly the American nightmare that so many people face, what if something catastrophic happens? I share my story with hopes that the next time you drive past a sign offering shingles shots that you’ll stop and get one. If you have a doctor asked them about it, find out as much as you can and do what you got to do to keep this from happening to you.

I’ve included some pictures with this article about what shingles looks like. I tried to be as discreet as I can in selecting the pictures to go along with this article. But the bottom line is that this is an ugly disease and you should do everything within your power to avoid contracting shingles. Don’t take this lightly I beg you.

Let me know if this article has helped you in any way. You can contact me at daleshepard31@hotmail.com .  I thank you for your continued prayer and support.

Neither Phoenix.org, nor any of our writers are medical doctors. While the information in this article is deemed valuable it is no substitution for a medical doctor and should not be relied on solely.

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