• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

You only get shingles once????

heapsreal

iherb 10% discount code OPA989,
Messages
10,089
Location
australia (brisbane)
When I had shingles, I was bedridden for a year, not a few months. Mistake on my part to have written that info.

This was before the anti-virals were used....so lysine was one of the methods I tried. I did take it round the clock, it interfered with my sleep but so did the shingles themselves.

I can only remember that I used any product with lidocaine in it. They've now increased the amount of that to 4% in things like Aspercreme and other products. I used sprays, roll-ons....and my neurologist had prescribed an ointment made by a compound pharmacy. Use Ivory soap for bathing and washing your hair. Allergies are made much worse. Rinse all sheets twice....it may help.

I was terrified of hearing even the word "shingles" and on my own (b/c doctors could decide b/c of cysts in my spinal cord....but it was spur of the moment at my drugstore and it has been just fine. No reappearance of the shingles and yes, I still have pain from having had them. Do whatever you can to avoid those things....people have no idea how bad the illness can get.

Sorry that lysine hasn't worked on the varicella. Yours, Lenora

Thanks for the suggestion. I did look up injectable lysine, thinking one should get higher blood levels of lysine with it. Thinking off the top of my head 1 injection a day and lysine tabs throughout the day. Only problem is injectable lysine only comes in a small dose and it's expensive. What dose of lysine did you try? I used anywhere between 1000-2000mg 3 times a day and similar dose upto 5 times a day.

The antivirals do reduce severity and length of an episode. My first shingles attack was when I stopped antivirals (taking for possible chronic ebv/cmv). I was off antivirals for maybe a week when spots appeared and after a few days I realised what it was and started back on antivirals.
It put me off work for 3 months. The next few months while still on antivirals I had the smaller outbreaks in the same area. When I tried stopping again same thing, 3 months off work and have been on antivirals ever since. A few months on valtrex as shortage of famvir. I think famvir works much better than valtrex.

I don't find the rash particularly painful but I think being on my head and giving me severe headaches, overides any pain that may come from the rash. Although headaches feel worse on the left side where the rash is. Maybe the shingles infection is deeper than the nerves closer to the surface of the skin????

Last couple of days I looked up the vaccine for shingles and its actually cheaper than a few years ago. So I may try it even though I'm not sure how it could help, as it increases antibodies to varicella and I produce plenty of antibodies. I think the virus is reactivating because of low nk function and maybe low function of certain T cells???

Cheers 🍻