"Califbill" wrote in message
...

"Mr. Luddite" nowayalso.jose.com wrote:
"Hank©" wrote in message
eb.com...


O'Bamacare's got you covered.
When you recover from this, go get that colonoscpy that's overdue.

--------------------------

Right now I'd trade a colonoscopy a week for the next two months
for this.

Just noticed something that's almost funny. The doc said that
because
the shingles virus follows nerve paths, you will only get it on one
side
of your body at a time.

It's only my left eye and left side of my face that are affected,
but I
have a bunch of blisters on the top of my scalp (under my remaining,
thinning hair).

I just ran my fingers over them and realized that they all start
from the
centerline and go leftward. The right side is fine. Weird.

You realize that Shingles is a version of Chicken Pox. If you did not
have
CP as a kid, likely not to have Shingles.


separator

I knew that but it's about all I knew about shingles. Here's some
things I learned today:

My age group (and probably several others here) were of the pre-
childhood inoculation era.
We were expected to go through the normal chickenpox, measles, mumps
thing like a right of passage.

At some point childhood disease inoculations started. I am not sure
when, but I know all our kids were inoculated and never had any of the
childhood diseases.

Contrary to myth, shingles is not contagious. Someone with active
shingles *cannot* infect someone else. The only exception is that
someone with active shingles *can* infect a person who has never had
chickenpox *and* was never inoculated for chickenpox. In this case,
it is possible to transfer the virus from someone with active shingles
to the other person, except he/se won't develop shingles. They will
develop chickenpox. This is very rare.

Shingles hits people of all ages. Many have developed it in their
20s, 30s and upward. It's not an "old person" virus. It ranges from
very mild to very severe and life threatening. Many people have had
very mild bouts of shingles and never knew it. If they even noticed,
they assumed it was just an allergy based rash that might be itchy but
is painless and eventually goes away. Then there are cases like
mine that are more severe and you *know* you have something. Even
still, I originally thought it was a fiberglass allergy reaction. A
nurse said it was pink eye which is a bacteria based infection. The
anti-biotic eye drops she prescribed and I was initially using is
worthless against a viral infection. The eye doc told me to throw it
away.

But the two doctors I saw confirmed it was shingles. The clue is the
only affecting one side thing, because it's a viral infection that
follows nerve paths. You won't get shingles on both sides of your
body (face, scalp, chest, back, etc.) at the same time because each
side of your body has separate nerve pathways. That blew my mind.
The left side of my face, my left eye and the left side of my scalp
are affected. The right sides of each are clear and unaffected. It's
painful but so far nothing I can't tolerate.

As Harry mentioned, a vaccine was released for shingles in 2006.
It's currently about 60 percent effective in preventing a break out or
repeat break out. If it doesn't prevent a breakout, it will
typically minimize the severity and duration. I'll be signing up for
it as soon as this episode is over. Doc said now is not the time.