About a week ago, I started getting a strange irritation on the left side of my back. After a few days of it getting worse, I began to think, “This feels a lot like shingles.” something that I had experienced many years ago, but then I remembered, “It can’t be shingles, because I had gotten the two shingles shots to prevent shingles.”
Well guess what, those expensive shots are not 100% effective at preventing shingles, and they can lose their potency after about five years. That was certainly something I didn’t know. The vaccine can be very effective in most people, and should lessen the severity of the infection for those that get shingles again.
Shingles is a painful rash on the skin that later erupts into blisters. Strangely, it only occurs on one side of your body, either on the left side or the right side. If you had chicken pox when you were a kid, even though that malady eventually went away, some of the virus that caused it stays in your body, and can much later erupt and cause shingles.
The red rash can be very painful. Mine isn’t too bad, but the rash is located along my waist, right where my belt is, so the chafing of the belt and my jeans, does cause discomfort when I move. There is no cure if you get shingles, you just have to wait it out for a month or so. I guess you can get some cremes to lessen the pain of the rash. Fortunately, shingles is not contagious.
As kids, we used to joke about how people of my grandparent’s age used to only talk about their ailments. Now as someone in my dotage, I am doing the same thing.
You can take a look at my paintings: davidmarchant2.ca
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