I had shingles on my left shoulder blade back in my late 20’s. Stress related. I wasn’t sick otherwise.
Damn that hurt. Rubbing against my shirt was eyes rolling into the back of my head levels of sudden pain.
A few years back, I developed a small rash- just a few bumps, really, on my shin. And then a couple of days later, I noticed that I had a weirdly sensitive area on my upper thigh. Looked it up, and decided it was shingles. Made a doctor’s appointment.
I showed it to the doctor and said that I thought it was shingles… but she said that since it didn’t hurt, it probably wasn’t… but when I told her about the sensitive area on my upper thigh, she said, “Oh… huh, I guess it really is shingles. You’re really lucky.”
So no, it’s not always painful.
Good point and yes, I am careful about this in the context of vulnerable groups. As far as I know, there is no routine chicken pox vaccination in the UK - the standard method of acquiring immunity is to catch the disease, usually during childhood.
I was super joking. You’re no fun anymore 
Sorry, didn’t mean to be Captain Bringdown, but it was less than hilarious 
so I thought there was a chance you were serious.
My younger sister had shingles on her upper back/shoulders when she was in her twenties. She said it was the most pain she’s ever had.
So we can all have some closure :D:
Poison sumac/ivy yickiness is clearing up nicely; a patch sprung up on my other knee, I think I can blame this outbreak (again) on dog paws that have stomped around in urushiol-bearing flora then going to sleep on my legs.
I haven’t felt cruddy/had a fever since the day I posted this, so I guess it was just a coincidence.