A shingles diagnosis: one expert weighs in

Nethea was frightened when she awoke in the middle of the night with painful blisters on one side of her torso. A call to family medicine doctor Kevin Soden, MD, revealed a case of the shingles. Learn about triggers, treatment and more.

Transcript

00:00

[ELECTRONICA MUSIC] Nethea, great to see you again.

00:06

So nice that you're here today. Thank you so much for having me. I know that you've had a problem in the past, and you're here today to kind of help educate

00:14

people going forward. So tell me a little bit about what happened to you and why you called me one night. I woke up in the middle of the night in excruciating pain,

00:24

and I noticed I had a stripe of blisters on my torso. And pain just radiated from those blisters across my body.

00:32

I was in such pain, I felt like I had been set on fire. That's how debilitating it was. And I was frightened, so I called you

00:39

in the middle that night to ask for guidance, because I didn't know if I needed to go to the ER, if I needed to call an ambulance, if I was having a medical emergency.

00:47

I kind of knew right away what it was because I've taken care of a lot of people with-- with shingles.

00:53

The unique thing about it is that it confines itself to a couple of areas of your skin, most commonly

00:59

on your chest area and your torso. Can be on your face, can be on your legs. But it never goes past the midline.

01:06

How long did the blisters last? Well, the blisters lasted about three weeks. It took a long time for them to go away. They kind of crusted over, and it took a while for them

01:14

to resolve. The pain actually started to subside after about a week on antiviral medication,

01:22

and I felt much better. But I was fatigued. I felt run down, and that took-- it took a couple weeks for that to go away.

01:28

KEVIN SODEN: Yeah. I wondered if there was something I had done to-- to cause this to manifest, because I thought shingles was

01:35

something that happened to people when they were older, and this was shortly after my 40th birthday. I'd been working a new job.

01:42

I was under a lot of stress. I'd been traveling a lot, and I wasn't getting enough sleep. And so I was thinking, is getting run down,

01:49

does that help bring about shingles? Yep, bingo. You-- you won the lottery. Unfortunately, all the things that you mentioned-- stress,

01:57

lack of sleep, the pressure you were under-- all that can cause your immune system to run down,

02:03

and this is what triggers this in younger people. Because you are absolutely correct, it is a disease of older people for the most part.

02:10

Generally, 50 years old. Mostly, 60s and 70s are very, very common. A million people a year will develop

02:18

shingles, which is surprising when I tell people that. And one in three people in the United States will develop it over their lifetime.

02:24

What about the vaccine? Is-- does the vaccine makes sense for someone like me who's already had shingles, or is it just for people who haven't had it yet?

02:32

Yes, you still should get the vaccine. There is a brand new vaccine that seems to work much, much better than the old vaccine in terms

02:40

of preventing things. So even though you've had it, you still can get shingles again. And so this vaccine will keep you from getting it again,

02:48

or at least mitigate the symptoms. This should really make a difference for people. And-- and even I've had the old vaccine.

02:55

But the CDC still recommends getting the new vaccine because it will help prevent future cases. The old vaccine actually wears down over time.

03:04

So getting the new vaccine will kind of get your immune system back up again and keep you from getting it in the future. Very helpful.

03:10

Well, you provided wonderful information today, and thank you for being here and sharing your story. Thank you so much for having me. This has been a real pleasure.