Damned shingles. Wednesday I discovered this nasty looking rash on my low back and upper hip – who looks at their own low back? I’m just lucky one patch itched so I looked in the mirror, planning to apply some Benadryl to it, and was horrified to see several large patches of rash that altogether cover at least six square inches of my skin. I figured maybe it was poison ivy – everything is still green here, and even though I hadn’t been doing any gardening, one of the dogs might have gotten in some and rubbed up against me. But Thursday it hadn’t improve, so I got a doctor’s appointment and went to the doctor yesterday morning, who took one look and pronounced it shingles. She put me on Valtrex, an antiviral medication, and assured me it should clear right up. It didn’t hurt at that point, just itched a bit.
But today I am in misery. The damned medicine makes my head spin and is giving me about the worst headache of my life, and the fucking nerve irritation is making both the bursitis in my hip and the existing nerve damage in my foot flare up. So I sit here with sudden shooting, burning pains coursing through my left side. I already have Vicodin for my foot pain, but it’s not touching this shit. Every time I try to walk, my hip screams at me from the bursitis, and my foot spasms up on me from the irritation my already damaged nerves there are undergoing.
Is there some way I can magically transport this virus into the vacuum of space or something so it will fucking leave me alone?
Sorry, Herpes is forever. It lives in one’s system (in the nerve ganglia). It lives on in everyone who ever had Chicken Pox.
But one should stick with the Valtrex if at all possible. It will shorten the course, and make it hurt less than it would have without it, for the vast majority of sufferers.
And contact your doc for stronger pain meds. I’m stingy with narcotics for my patients, but for Zoster (AKA shingles) I’ll dole out the potent stuff like oxycodone at need.
And once the blisters are closed, some people do get reduction of the post-herpetic neuralgia (aka pain) by using the zostrix over the counter cream regularly. It’s made from hot pepper extract, so don’t touch your eyes after using it. Or pick your nose. Or masturb… oh you get the idea.
Thanks, Qagdop. So far the pain is manageable with the Vicodin, but if it gets much worse I will definitely be on the horn to the doctor. And I have every intention of sticking with the Valtrex, considering the alternative – postherpetic neuralgia is not something I’m interested in living with, obviously. I just hate it passionately in the meantime.
I’m just hoping I went in soon enough to shorten the course without a lot more problems. If this is as bad as the pain gets, I can live with it. I may not like it, but I can live with it.
It also sucks that Papa Tiger is working a thousand miles away right now and I really want to just lie there and get pampered, and we simply cannot afford for him to come home right now unless I get a whole lot sicker than I currently am.
{{{{Mama Tiger}}}}
/em hands you the remote to the TV, arranges the laptop homepaged to SDMB on the bed table, and brings you fresh baked lemon poppyseed muffins and some freshly made blue mountain coffee…
Thanks for the muffins, aruvqan, they’re delicious!
Actually, daughter whiterabbit just ran to the store and got me all the goodies I could possibly want for several days, as well as a few necessities I was dangerously low on, so I really can just curl up in a corner now and stay put for as long as necessary. This may be my chance to catch up on all the stuff I’ve been taping to watch “when I have a chance.” Assuming I can stay awake long enough thanks to the drugs that are keeping me from hurting too badly, that is…