Shingles: A Painful and Debilitating Disease

If you are 50 years older or older, Please contact your physician immediately and ask about the vaccine to prevent Shingles. This is a very painful disease. I can stand a lot of pain but, Shingles (which they call Zosters Herpes - comes from the Chicken Pox virus that stayed in your spinal system after they were gone, and something triggers it. Which follows a path along your nerve endings. You can have debilitating pain and itching, numbness, and a rash that reminds you of Chicken Pox.

My husband had Shingles in April . His Shingles started on his Neck and spread to his shoulder and chest (he was given Valtrex for 7 days taken 3 times a day. Cost $180 for 21 pills) . Mine started in May. My Shingles started with uncontrollable itching on my thigh for over 24 hours. Then the next day my lower back (right below my waist) felt like it went out and I was in extreme pain and a burning feeling. The next step was numbness on my thigh from right above my knee to 3/4 the way up my thigh. From there it went to breaking out on my lower back and thigh, which then spread to my hip and more over the top and sides of my thigh to my knee. I received the same prescription as my husband, plus pain medication and a neurapathy medication to hopefully prevent permanent damage of the nerves. The pain was horrendous, unrelenting at times, and debilitating. My pain would start at my lower back below the waist to my hip and down the sides and top of my thigh past my knee. The pain shoots from my back to my knee and was a constant stabbing pain.