On Wednesday the rash showed up. I showed it to my roommates and one of them thought it was Shingles. She didn’t seem too concerned about it at that time, though. At that time it was too late to find a doctor. (I have no regular doctor or insurance.) So I read up on it in Wikipedia.
I went to do student teaching on Thursday and then went to a Minor Care Unit to get diagnosed. They told me not to go back to school until Tuesday, and their main concern seemed to be pregnant women. They weren’t concerned about me working at a pizza place on the weekend, as long as there were no pregnant women there.
Today my roommate gets home. I inform her that it is indeed Shingles. Now she is extremely concerned, saying that she has never been vaccinated or had Chicken Pox.
Wikipediasays this:
How worried does she need to be? We aren’t intimate by any means, but we do share a bathroom. Is she safe as long as she doesn’t touch anything that my sores have touched? Or would she have to actually touch my sores to get it? Does she need to stay at her boyfriend’s house for a week or so?
Also, the quote above implies that if she becomes a “newly-infected individual”, she won’t necessarily develop chickenpox. What are the odds, and if her system fights it off, is she now essentially vaccinated?
I don’t think that this violates the rule about soliciting medical advice, since I have seen a doctor and been prescribed medicine which I am taking. I’m not asking for medical advice for myself, but for precaution advice for my roommate.