lilah morgan ([info]amanda42) wrote,
2005-08-07 14:38:00
  • Mood: sleepy
  • Music: red sox baseball announcers

shingles

Shingles (not the roof kind) are extraordinarily painful. I thought I just had some bug bites from PorcFest, but the bug bites got more and more painful and wouldn't go away. So I checked with my doctor and found out that I have shingles, also known as Chicken Pox Version 2. My entire arm is now throbbing with intense, burning pain, and there's nothing I can do except take an anti-viral medicine and some Vicodin and wait for this thing to heal naturally.

Apparently, I'm highly contagious to anyone who has never had Chicken Pox (or the vaccine), so I wouldn't be allowed to go to work even if I felt up to it. But I don't feel up to it by any stretch. If I don't take the Vicodin, I experience this intense, burning pain that distracts me from accomplishing anything. If I do take the Vicodin, I instantly fall asleep for a few hours only to be awoken by the pain when the Vicodin wears off. So I get to use a few of those sick days that I haven't used in the four years I've been working for my company.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to study for my final exam in Real Estate Law, and I'm trying to write my take-home final for Financial Statement Auditing. But I only get anything done during these small windows when the Vicodin is starting to take effect but before it knocks me into deep sleep. I often wake up with my head in my Real Estate Law textbook, only a few pages further than I was the last time I woke up.

The scary thing about this condition is that 20% of those who get shingles will experience the pain indefinitely. I desperately hope I'm not in that 20%, 'cause I'll really need to be at full strength when law school begins in September. Then again, perhaps the sharp pain will help me keep the silliness of first year law school in perspective.

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  • 27 comments

[info]gentlemaitresse

August 7 2005, 19:04:21 UTC 6 years ago

also known as Chicken Pox Version 2

Also known as herpes zoster. I seriously doubt the anti-viral will do anything.

[info]zarex

August 8 2005, 14:33:19 UTC 6 years ago

Oh? Have you performed studies which contradict those that have established antiviral drugs to be safe and effctive treatment? Or are you just being obtuse?

[info]amanda42

August 8 2005, 21:52:17 UTC 6 years ago

LOL. I was wondering the same thing, but I wasn't going to say anything...

[info]gentlemaitresse

6 years ago

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Anonymous

August 9 2005, 00:32:33 UTC 6 years ago

Why would I want to be obtuse? I consider Amanda my friend.

Since I'm on someone else's computer right now, AND I don't feel the need to prove an *opinion*, I'm not going to go looking for info. But I seem to recall that herpes has no cure, and few effective treatments.

Why did you feel the need to attack me for stating an opinion?

[info]amanda42

6 years ago

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[info]technoshaman

August 7 2005, 19:09:33 UTC 6 years ago

Oh, *no*... hang in there, and get better soon. (Will they let you take a medical incomplete? You might want to go ahead and ask for one... what studying you manage won't hold very well with all that Vicodin....)

If you take the "I" then you can concentrate on sleeping through all this and just getting better... which will no doubt help the grade you eventually get.

Sanity (in the form of lack of pain, physical or mental) comes before GPA... I learned that one the hard way. May you find some soon.

[info]amanda42

August 8 2005, 21:56:09 UTC 6 years ago

No way - I need to finish these classes so I can register for classes at Harvard Law for September. So I'm pushing through. I'm feeling better today than I did yesterday... taking a little less Vicodin and staying awake a little longer!

[info]technoshaman

August 8 2005, 21:59:02 UTC 6 years ago

Oof. At least it's getting better, not worse. Will they actually let you go to the final if you're still symptomatic? Can you make alternate arrangements with the prof?

[info]manuka

August 7 2005, 19:10:38 UTC 6 years ago

Roof shingles can be pretty painful too, either a deck of them falling on your head from roof height, or from the muscle pain associated with picking up 14 trillion of them off the beach in the wake of a hurricane.

Seriously though, shingles do indeed suck.

Are you leaving your beancounter job to go to law school, or will you stay with your current employer?

[info]madbard

August 7 2005, 19:24:16 UTC 6 years ago

> Then again, perhaps the sharp pain will help me keep the silliness >of first year law school in perspective.

I would have imagined the reverse to be true. :)

Hope you deshingle quickly and as painlessly as is medically possible.


[info]amanda42

August 8 2005, 21:57:04 UTC 6 years ago

Thanks! I'm doing my usual... staying so busy that I hardly have time to notice. Except this time I'm really busy with some hard-core napping.

[info]ehintz

August 7 2005, 20:51:35 UTC 6 years ago

Ouchiness.

Bob I. had those a while back, I don't think he has any recurring pain.

[info]unixronin

August 7 2005, 21:06:06 UTC 6 years ago

Not a pleasant souvenir. I trust you'll take it the right way if I hope that, in this case, you prove to be a member of the vast unexceptional majority.....?

I concur on the suggestion of requesting a medical incomplete, if it appears necessary.

[info]abz6598

August 7 2005, 21:27:31 UTC 6 years ago

Been there, done that. Painful but it eventually goes away. Usually leaves some nice scarring.

[info]smandal

August 7 2005, 22:49:23 UTC 6 years ago

:( That sucks

Anonymous

August 8 2005, 00:51:31 UTC 6 years ago

ouch

I get these recurrently (sorry to say). The anti-viral DOES help if you take it fairly early. I don't find that narcotics help-- they just make me groggy. Counter-stimulus DOES seem to help-- like using a capsicum based "arthritis creme" around the area (not directly on any of the blisters), which seems to alter what's happening with the nerves.

[info]manuka

August 8 2005, 02:58:11 UTC 6 years ago

Re: ouch

"confuse a cat" applied to nerves :)

Anonymous

August 8 2005, 07:26:55 UTC 6 years ago

Shingles

Hi Amanda
My Aunt who is 99 this mnoth had or still has them on her leg. I had them on the side of my head I looked like I had been runover by a mac truck It started on the side of my head and worked its way around to my nose. My left eye was swolen shut I had Scabs inside and out side of my nose. I was told that an other person had the exact same as I had and the inside of his eye dried up luckily my eye came out of it all right. I guess you would say the Shingles are a real bother.
LL&P
Bob I

[info]selfishgene

August 8 2005, 18:55:49 UTC 6 years ago

Good luck. A cousin had it a few years ago. She cleared up well with no lasting pain.
Best treatment - reduce your stress level!

[info]amanda42

August 8 2005, 21:51:03 UTC 6 years ago

Stress level - I'm reducing that by staying home from work!! (Also, I can't drive while I'm taking Vicodin...)

[info]scottsch

August 8 2005, 22:03:36 UTC 6 years ago

doh!

Maybe you could split the Vicodin doses in half to increase your window of consciousness.

Don't torture yourself!

[info]frauhedgehog

August 9 2005, 15:44:23 UTC 6 years ago

Yow. My dad had a bad case. At the time his doctor said that because of his age, he would have lasting problems (he lost his hearing in one ear and had some facial paralysis) and possible recurrence (he did, but not as bad). The hopeful upside for you is that the doctor said it is usually just a temporary annoyance in younger people. Hope it leaves soon.

[info]amanda42

August 9 2005, 19:25:33 UTC 6 years ago

Owwie. I consider myself lucky after hearing about your dad. It is still with me, but getting better.

Anonymous

August 9 2005, 19:28:09 UTC 6 years ago

Kids =yours and mind

Has Elaine had ChickenPox?

You had a particularly nasty case of it when you were a baby. I was furious with the day care person for not informing me immediately, that morning, that another child there had the CP. One of the prevailing attitudes of the generation before mine was "They're going to get it anyway, so better expose them and get it over with."
Like I said, you had a particularly nasty case.

Grammy had a nasty case of shingles, too.

Hope the Adult Version is kinder to you.
And my apoligies for not rescuing you sooner back then.

Love'n'stuff
Mom

BTW there is a study currently underway on Shingles Prevention at UCSD Medical School/Veterans' Hospital here in La Jolla. I volunteered, but wasn't selected.

[info]winter_long

August 10 2005, 03:09:17 UTC 6 years ago

My sympathies.

I am just getting over a case of that myself. Not only was it the most painful thing I've dealt with in a while, it just seems *so* *friggin* *stupid*. Like you, I had chicken pox has a kid. Shouldn't we have been over that kind of stuff by now? :)

Hopefully this won't interfere too badly with all of the Good Things you have coming up.

Regards,
Branden

[info]miz_ginevra

November 11 2005, 22:30:00 UTC 6 years ago

hey there

I don't know you, but I've just gone through this whole thing too - and I hope it got better for you quick. I'm alternating between pain, itchin and drugged out coma.
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