A patient’s experience of shingles

“One morning I woke up and felt several bumps on my back on the right side. I was slightly concerned at first that something had bitten me in my sleep. After having the bumps for about a day, they became intensely itchy but at this point it was more annoying than painful.

“When the bumps became more like blisters, I phoned my doctor for an appointment. As soon as I lifted my shirt to show her the rash, she told me I had shingles. She gave me an antiviral medication to stop the virus from multiplying. It ended up being an extremely unpleasant experience, which lasted for several weeks. The rash did stay on one side or ‘half’ of my body. It also became extremely painful. Since my nieces have never had chickenpox, I ended up staying away from them until my shingles had healed as we did not want to risk them getting chickenpox from me.

“Shingles is no joke. The rash itself wasn’t too terrible, but the horrific nerve pain made my head spin. It felt, and I remember thinking this very clearly, like someone burning, punching, and cutting me at the same time. It was as if I were being electrocuted and nothing could stop the random zaps.

“My doctor tried me on a few different tablets to deal with the pain and eventually gabapentin helped a little. The pain went on for months and I still need to wear a hat when I go out as any wind on the part where I had shingles still brings on horrible pain. My wife had the shingles vaccine and I’d been too busy to find time to go and have it.”