My mom is just getting over it. Going on 6 months. I have never seen anyone in as much agony as she was in. All she wanted was to die. I will get the vaccine as soon as I am old enough. I never want to go through what she went through.
Had shingles in my mid-30s. Classic presentation at the waistline, mostly one side. It was a right PITA, but luckily not quite as debilitating as it has been for some I’ve known. I think I stayed home from work for a day or two, took Acyclovir, and was fine. It was a rather stressful time in life, which I believe is one of the triggers. In fact, I seem to recall that it was one of the first questions the doctor asked me.
The most difficult part was all the questions the doctor was obliged to ask about whether I might have an immune system problem. It took a while to convince him that, yes, I’m well aware of all the things that can lead to HIV and other types of infection and that, no, there was essentially zero chance that I had a sub-par immune system.
I had shingles when I was pregnant. It was in a couple of spots forming an incomplete ring around my middle, just above my waist. Turns out that it’s fairly common in pregnant women because the immune system is a little compromised.
It looked like small patches of a mild rash. I commonly have little break outs of skin rashes from allergies now and then, so I tried to ignore it. But then it started to sting like an electrical shock whenever my clothes brushed against it. I felt like a big wuss, because the pain was waaaaaay out of proportion to how bad it looked.
I was relieved to find out it was shingles, and I wasn’t just being a hypochondriac. The anti-virals did the trick after several days.
I caught chicken pox from Dad’s shingles; he was in his 40s.
I had shingles last year at the ripe old age of 32. I said the same thing about having thought that shingles was an old lady disease to the doctor who diagnosed me in the ER. I had to go in at 2 or 3 a.m. because the sores began creeping into my eye, which was amost swollen shut. Anyway, the doc laughed at me and said that he’d be a rich man if he had a dime for every time he heard that. The same thing happened (some random guy laughing at me for thinking shingles was an old lady disease) when I went to the 24-hour pharmacy to pick up some antiviral medication and vicodin. Having already had a migraine for three days and having looked like Quasimodo for 24 hours, I’m surprised I didn’t rip someone’s head off when they said that. But that probably would’ve made my head hurt more.
I was even more ticked to be reminded that pain medication doesn’t work that well on me. The vicodin would wear off in an hour and I’d lay there in bed, trying not to move, while I waited for the four-hour mark so I could have my next dose and pass out.
As I understand it, you’re at greater risk for shingles if you get chicken pox as an adult, rather than as a child… as I did. 
That’s reminded me of a week I try to forget! Drugs work very well on me, but the pethidine still wouldn’t kill the pain for the four hours. I’d get one, or two, hours of relief and then have to lie totally still, in the dark, longing for the next hit. Any movement caused a horrendous burst of pain. Apparently some kids at the hospital were sneaking into my room because they had heard that Elephant Woman was in there. I didn’t know until a nurse apologized to me. I figured that was the least of my worries!
MY daughter had shingles at 18. Three different doctors checked her because they couldn’t believe it was shingles at her age. Whatever! The worst part was her (non-custodial) father, upon getting the notice from his insurance company called to give her hell over having herpes.
I had it at 17 and still have the scars. God it hurt.
A good friend of mine got a bad case of it around 29 or so. He said the nerve pain was the most excruciating thing he’d ever experienced.
Had shingles a decade ago. Went all the way around a narrow band of my upper body, about nipple height. Definitely worse on the right side, but absolutely present on the left as well. I didn’t take anything for it. I was in a new country, all on my own, and I just toughed it out. I think I was delirious a couple nights.
In a word?
No.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=527375
Shingles = not fut at all and even the Percoset barely makes it tolerable.
That’s what I’m scared of–a FOAF had shingles in her eye and they took forever to heal up. :eek:
So, there’s a vaccine available?
Same with me, during an emotionally hectic period in my early 20s.
My body has a way of telling me to slow down by forcing me to through illness. What I thought was a hive on my face a couple of Thursdays ago, didn’t go away in the hour or two expected, and then spread over the next few days. I ended up at the doc on Saturday morning expecting food allergy, when she gave a prescription for Valtrex for shingles. I scared the crap out of myself with pictures and info on the internet (since I wasn’t sleeping because of the pain). Anyway here’s the cliffs notes:
It can be brought on by a weakened immune system due to illness or stress.
sorry hit reply too soon:
My body has a way of telling me to slow down by forcing me to through illness. What I thought was a hive on my face a couple of Thursdays ago, didn’t go away in the hour or two expected, and then spread over the next few days. I ended up at the doc on Saturday morning expecting food allergy, when she gave a prescription for Valtrex for shingles. I scared the crap out of myself with pictures and info on the internet (since I wasn’t sleeping because of the pain). Anyway here’s the cliffs notes:
It can be brought on by a weakened immune system due to illness or stress. If they catch it within the first 72 hours an antiviral can surpress the severity. As others have said it is caused by the chicken pox virus which lives in your nervous system after you’ve recovered, but which can reactivate later as shingles along a nerve path. That explains why it usually only hits one side of the body. Mine was along this nerve: Trigeminal nerve - Wikipedia. Everywhere there is yellow in that illustration is where there was/is rash, itching or pain. After the rash is gone the pain/fatigue can linger for 4-6 weeks, and sometimes can be permanent pain if there’s nerve damage. My rash didn’t get as bad as some of the pictures in the net, but it did scab over and peel. Until this happens you can give the chicken pox virus to someone who hasn’t had it yet or hasn’t been vaccinated.
There is a shingles vaccine now but they’re only giving it to people over 60 years old. One of the reasons the doctors are speculating that they’re seeing an increase in non-geriatric shingles is the chicken pox vaccine. Since kids are no longer getting chicken pox naturally, the parents aren’t getting a natural ‘booster’ of having their immune systems remember to fight it off when their kids get it.
My mother had it last year. She was run down from several surgeries. It took a while to diagnose, because she had it behind her right eye. My sister, the wacky new age, western medicine hating acupuncturist diagnosed it, and hassled the doctors about it until they finally took her seriously. Mom was in agony the whole time.
It took almost a year for the pain to completely subside, and she was in the hospital for a couple of weeks, at least. She’s lost some vision in that eye. Apparently, since it can attack any nerves, it decided her optic nerve or whatever was a dandy place to manifest.
That’s not how shingles works- you can’t pick it up from someone who has chicken pox. In order to get shingles, you had to have had chicken pox at one time and then it went and laid dormant in your system. When your immune system is later compromised for some reason, the shingles will pop back out, being opportunistic and all.
I got shingles when I was 21. My roommate got MRSA and I thought I’d managed to avoid that, but the shingles popped up. As soon as the shingles went away, the MRSA reared its pretty little head.
Anywho, the shingles were around my right knee and burrrrrrned. I would slap it really hard because that’s all that would relieve the burning!
And because I’m gross, I took pictures of my shingles. Beautiful isn’t it?
I can sympathize with your mom. I had to seen an opthamologist for a few months after my case of shingles went away to make sure my optic nerve didn’t sustain any permanent damage. I still have some scarring on my cornea but nothing that has affected my vision.
My husband asked me which hurt more - labor or shingles. My response was that my unmedicated 32-hour-long labor was easier than having the shingles. Of course, that memory is somewhat clouded by eclampsia so I’ll have to let him know in about three months if shingles really hurts worse than labor or not. At least the baby won’t come out my eye. 
Mine looked more like yours, which is why I didn’t think I had shingles. All the other gross pics on the 'net looked all scabby.
Mine eventually did form a scab, but a very small one that is still there, even though it fell off the other day.
Still, though, I’m very grateful for what was a very mild case.