Letter: An oft-misdiagnosed disease that can be prevented

Sometime last week,my head hurt. I rarely get headaches—and this didn’t feel like a headache.

The pressure was boring from the back of my head through my eye. That’s how I described it. I took Tylenol exra, I took Ibuprofin. I took them alone and together, and while the unusual sensation was mute, the pain never vanished.

A lymph node felt tender to the touch.

On Monday, my forehead showed a small rash—but I’d had that before and it was nothing a little cream from the doc couldn’t take care of.

But not this time. The forehead rash was there the next morning. So was a very swollen, rash covered eye, my right one.

And the pain was worse.

I was baffled. I looked like the loser in a prize fight. I looked beat-up.

All day I wondered what was going on. Did I get hit in the head by something—we had just taken a trip to Vegas for a night-and-a-day—and at one point the take-on fell on my hand. Did it hit my face, too? and I just forgot about it?

While walking around the house, it came to me. "Shingles. I have shingles."

I thought shingles was for old folks, not for me—but a year ago a friend got it on her back, and while describing the terrible experience, she mentioned that there was a vaccine available.

"June, go get the vaccine,’ she said, more than once during our talk. Do you think I did?

Boy, do I wish I did. How could I have not listened to her almost-prophetic words.

"Go get the vaccine!"

The day of the skin eruption and the swelling and pain around the eye, I went to our Coastside ER in Moss Beach. I told the doc, "I think I have shingles," and when we looked at me in the bright room, he agreed.

Because I had gotten there in the early stages, there was "hope" that it wouldn’t get much worse if I took the meds at once. The time was 8:35 on Tuesday night.

"How late is Long’s open? I asked.

"Nine o’clock. Go…!"

So we didn’t have much time to talk about shingles, I had to get the anti-viral drug, Valtrex.

I’m a writer, not a doc, but apparently if you’ve had chickenpox you may be at risk for shingles. Google it and read about it. (My impression, also, is that shingles can strike anyone at any age these days. It doesn’t just happen to you if you over 60. Plenty of folks much younger are getting it. I’ve even seen is described as an epidemic—until it scabs it is contagious.)

The next morning I got an emergency appt with Dr. Koo at the Peninsula Eye Physicians in San Mateo. Having shingles around the eye can be dangerous. But I was ok. Dr.Koo has seen a lot of patients with my condition—and gave me the support I needed.

In a nutshell, shingles is horrible and extremely painful…the vaccine that I wish I had gotten may stop you from ever having to suffer what I did.

Please get the word out.

June Morrall