For those of you in the 50's,60's and 70's get your
shingles virus shot and save yourself a LOT of pain and grief. I just got over it, took about 14 weeks total, of which the first 8-10 weeks were total torture and the past month or so recovering, albeit very slowly. Still have a small amount of discomfort in a small area on my torso, but thank the good Lord it's over. About 32% of people will get it, with about 3-5% of those getting it in multiple locations on the body...like me! In about 1%, the pain NEVER goes away...man do I feel sorry for those people! Do yourself a HUGE favor....get the shot. It's good for 5 years then you have to get boosters every 5 years afterwards. Trust me....you don't want a severe case..or even a not so severe case. Lucky for me, I did not get any of it on my head/face/neck area..which can be extrememly dangerous in some cases. My entire torso, left arm, left leg to my knee and right tricep were affected. Seriously, I couldn't even tie my shoes or wear a shirt w/o difficulty and severe pain. One trick I learned....I ended up making a torso sleeve of paper to go under my tee shirt so the fabric would not rub against the extremely sensitive skin...not perfect but did make wearing the shirt a lot less painful. Perhaps worthy of a patent? Forget about average pain killers....nerve pain is a whole different animal and requires the heavy duty stuff...which I refused to take as I really like my liver and kidneys just the way they are..plus they are extremely addicting. I have enough problems as it is.