[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postherpetic_neuralgia[/url]

Not TGN, but we have heard it is close.

:sirrobin:

[QUOTE=xilman;326113]Like most everyone of my generation, I caught chicken pox (or chicken spots as we called it just to be contrary) as a kid. Several decades later the virus has re-awoken and I'm now in some considerable discomfort with an outbreak of shingles.

Luckily I trotted off down to the emergency medical service yesterday (my GP doesn't work weekends) to be told that I'd turned up early enough for antivirals to be effective. So I'm now swallowing 4g of aciclovir daily, along with copious quantities of analgesics. Further, I'm not allowed to go to work or to have saunas, the latter being a particularly severe restriction, for fear of infecting others.

Ho hum.[/QUOTE]


Ouch. My father had shingles several years ago, and it was extremely painful for him. I hope you get well soon!

[QUOTE=Xyzzy;326162][url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postherpetic_neuralgia[/url]

Not TGN, but we have heard it is close.

:sirrobin:[/QUOTE]AFAICT it's not as bad as TGN. Not yet, anyway.

I speak from experience :sad:

[QUOTE=NBtarheel_33;326122]The terrible thing is that, even as late as my own childhood (born in 1982), parents often *encouraged* their kids to get together with other pox-riddled kids in the neighborhood, in hopes that everyone would get the pox and be done with it at the same time. They even had a name for it, the "pox party"! Little did they know what they were setting the kids up for 40 or 50 years down the road...[/QUOTE]

No, those parents had it right ... I somehow avoided catching chicken pox in childhood, and finally caught it the Fall of my 2nd year at U of Michigan, just shy of 20 y.o. It ... was ... terrible. 3 days alternating between medicated baths and bed. I had blisters everywhere, including on my eyeballs. Still have scars where the first small blisters (wave 1 of the typical 3 that mark the course of the disease and the body's immune response to it) appeared, and the skin in the crooks of my arms opposite the elbows, where the highest blister counts occurred, never completely recovered, it looks 10-20 years older than it should. Now imagine going even longer and in late middle age or one's golden years having not merely a painful shingles outbreak, but rather catching a full-blown case of the pox.

Paul, is the vaccine supposedly effective - at least partially - against shingles, if given before an outbreak, i.e. in time for it to provide the desired long-term immune boost?

In any event, hope you're on the mend.

Haha, I remember that.

Way back in the day, one of my cousins had the pox, and my mother and my aunt arranged for her to come to my house to hang out. Yet I didn't catch said pox, so my parents had to take me to the doctor to get me vaccinated. Good times.

[QUOTE=ixfd64;326183]Haha, I remember that.[/QUOTE]
"I'll always remember *** for his infectious laugh..."

[QUOTE]Way back in the day, one of my cousins had the pox, and my mother and my aunt arranged for her to come to my house to hang out. Yet I didn't catch said pox, so my parents had to take me to the doctor to get me vaccinated. Good times.[/QUOTE]

Sounds like your cousin may have been past the highly infectious early stage, because during that period (usually around the time the first and smallest wave of blisters hits, before it's obvious that you've caught something other than minor poison ivy) the stuff is *extremely* contagious. I recall spotting the first blister late on a Friday afternoon, as I was hanging out near the UM law quad between classes. (Not law classes, but the law quad was a nice place to hang out). No idea at the time that that presaged the start of "bigger, better" things. That evening still felt fine, spent a couple hours drinking beers at a party at the ol' frat house. Woke up next morning, went to wash face, shocked to see mutant-style lumps (= hugely swollen lymph glands) nearly as big as ping-pong balls on either side of my neck. Ran over to health services, doctor quickly confirmed chicken pox, suggested (since I lived only ~3 hours' drive away from my folks) that I should get away from campus ASAP and convalesce there. Got home just as the 2nd, much bigger waves of blisters was starting, and the misery was beginning in earnest.

Anyway, when I got back to school middle of the following week it turned out I had infected the only 2 other guys in the frat who had not had CP in childhood. As neither was a specially close friend, I wouldn't have had direct physical contact with either.

Never did find out who I caught it from, nor who else I may have "paid it forward" to. (There's an interesting parallel with nuclear chain reactions, come to think of it.)

[QUOTE=ewmayer;326182]Paul, is the vaccine supposedly effective - at least partially - against shingles, if given before an outbreak, i.e. in time for it to provide the desired long-term immune boost?[/QUOTE]I have absolutely no idea, other than what I've read on Wikipedia. If you really want to find out I suggest you consult an expert.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;326182]In any event, hope you're on the mend.[/QUOTE]Not yet. :sad:

The rash is still developing --- we caught it early --- and I expect it to take about a week for it to run its course.

Your experience sounds markedly worse than mine...

[QUOTE=xilman;326245]I have absolutely no idea, other than what I've read on Wikipedia. If you really want to find out I suggest you consult an expert.[/quote]
I suspect the shingles vaccines I've been seeing advertised on TV the past year are based on some form of the anti-CP vaccine now given to children ... I shall look into this.

[QUOTE]Your experience sounds markedly worse than mine...[/QUOTE]
But worse-in-the-past-tense.

(Except of course for the latent virii sure to be there, just as the ones which awoke in your case.)

We wish you get well soon!

[thinking]these guys scared us, we need to put some gloves when we reply to this thread, or better don't look at it at all... can we take it by just reading the thread?[/thinking]

My wife I got the shingles vaccine this year. Our eye doctor was persuasive on the importance of this - he knew of people who went blind with shingles. INAD, but I imagine that once this outbreak subsides it would be possible for you to take the vaccine, too. Everybody who had chicken pox should consider it, but most medical plans in the US won't pay for it.

[QUOTE=LaurV;326272]We wish you get well soon!

[thinking]these guys scared us, we need to put some gloves when we reply to this thread, or better don't look at it at all... can we take it by just reading the thread?[/thinking][/QUOTE]

I think you both have to be coding and eating pizza at the same time. Some sort of quantum entanglement.

It certainly is an unhappy thread. My best wishes to the ill and suffering among us.