Shingles - Not the Roofing Material

 

I was walking through the grocery store, filling my cart with candy canes and tinsel, when I heard a voice. “Get your shingles shot….” it commanded.

I stopped and looked up. Was this a message from God? Should I be sore afraid?

No, it was the store’s public address system. It was a commercial for the Kroger Pharmacy.

“Get your shingles shot…in the store pharmacy.”

I’d been thinking about getting a shingles shot for about a year, which is when I first heard there was such a thing.

Then I found out how much a shingles shot cost. Whoa! And I thought $25 was steep for a flu shot.

Depending on your insurance, it can cost over $200.

I have an insurance plan where you never have to worry about whether it will pay or not. It won’t.

So I was looking at $240, right before Christmas.

Then I began thinking about the people I know who have had shingles.

I remember when I heard that Junior McCoy from church had shingles. I didn’t even know what shingles was back then. It was like chicken pox in adults, my dad told me. And then he told me how Mr. McCoy was suffering, itching all around the waist, couldn’t wear a shirt, blisters on his skin.

That’s when I first figured out that I never wanted shingles.

Then my accountant in Kentucky got shingles in her eyes right as tax season began and she had to extend all of her clients.

That convinced me. I never wanted to contract shingles.

I kept hearing stories and every story was just as scary as the one before it.

And then I heard about the shingles shot.

And then I heard about the cost.

I didn’t know which would be the bigger ouch.

But after a little reflection, I knew which would be the bigger ouch.

And that was when the voice from above commanded: get a shingles shot.

So I got my shingles shot and haven’t regretted a single dollar of it.

I’ve since heard more horror stories: the local dentist who lost an eye to shingles and another local man who had to go on disability in his forties because of the damage shingles did to his nervous system.

According to the info sheet the nurse gave me after I got my vaccine, I am protected from shingles for the rest of my life!

 

I published that column on December 11, 2009.

Apparently I didn't see the fine print on the info sheet where it said “the rest of your life or 13 years whichever comes first.”

Because Tuesday night at the walk-in clinic, I was diagnosed with shingles.

That zit on my chest and those two spider bites on my back were not zits or bites. They were a rash from shingles.

If you’ve never had shingles – and I pray you haven’t – or you have forgotten what chicken pox was like, a quick reminder. The infected skin either burns or itches or both.

I am now on an antiviral drug which may help a little bit. Otherwise I just have to wait it out, trying to avoid scratching and shifting around in my seat to ease the burning.

If you keep up with diseases that are advertised on the news then you probably already knew there is a new shingles vaccine, new and improved. The old one, the one I got in 2009, was only 51 percent effective, whatever that means, and the new one is over 90 percent effective. The new one is a two-dose vaccine, which means it costs twice as much.

I’ve known about it for five or so years but just kept putting off getting it.

After all I was 51 percent protected.

Now I know what 51 percent protected means. It means my protection ran out earlier this week.

 

I’ll be getting that new vaccine as soon as my itching and burning stops.

I’m telling all my friends about my experience to encourage them to get the new vaccine.

Now.