mrs. shingleton

That's Claire's current nickname for me. Yes, I've been gifted with a case of shingles. Before you recoil in horror from my herpes, let me explain. Shingles are the recurrence of the dormant chicken pox virus (herpes zoster) which lays dormant along your spinal column until it pops up during times of stress. Stress weakens your immune system and gives something like shingles the perfect chance to make its move. A lot of the discomfort from shingles comes from nerve pain, which happened to be my first symptom. A terrible bout of neuralgia on my left leg made me double over in pain several times last Wednesday. The next day seven little bumps that looked like spider bites appeared. They were uncomfortable and itched, but weren't too bad. Except they didn't go away. On Friday night my brother's girlfriend unofficially diagnosed me with shingles, but not before scaring the crap out of me by telling me they were scabies. *shudder* As if the herpes part of shingles isn't enough!!

I've had the blisters for a week now. I'm ready for them to start scabbing up and going away. I've sworn off all friends with babies, which is pretty much anyone. (unvaccinated people can get chicken pox from contact with shingles and the vaccine usually isn't given until a year old) The blisters that are already healing look like they'll scar nicely. Huge purple welts. Now I'll be able to add post-herpetic neuralgia to my list of maladies. Wheeeee!

I can't complain too much though because a simple Google image search shows just how bad shingles can get. My four or five-inch patch is nothing. Thank God I don't have it on my face. Thank God it isn't more widespread. Thank God.