Rosemary Appleton's report on experiencing an attack of Shingles (the chicken pox varicella herpes zoster virus).
Have you ever been grabbed by a burning demon in your face? I have. It's called "Shingles". Shingles is a disease that strikes more then a half-million Americans every year. Since it took three days of blinding pain for someone in the medical profession to recognize what I had, I thought I better use my website skills to publish my information. There is a theory that the sooner you start taking antivirus medication like Acyclovir or Famvir you lessen your chances of having lasting pain from nerve damage, post herpetic neuralgia (PHN), which I have had now for a year and six months. No one knew what it was when I came down with this. September 10th, 2002: I went to my dentist for throbbing pain in my upper jaw and nose with blisters next to my nose. He said it was not my teeth - maybe a sinus infection. He gave me a prescription for 250 mg Ampicillin. I went to my primary physician, he said it looked a little like a virus but gave me a prescription for CIPRO 500 mg and a decongestant Deconamine. The Ampicillin, Cipro and decongestant did not do any good. By this time I have blisters that looked like someone burned me with a cigarette up the side of my nose and across the top of my right cheek. September 11th: Pain has increased by an order of magnitude. My primary physician told me to go to the emergency room. A friend takes me to Plantation General Hospital because I can't drive myself anymore. One of the physicians, Dr. Carol Lieverman takes one look at the pattern of the blisters and recognizes that it is shingles. Thank you Dr. Carol. Plantation General gives me prescriptions for Famvir 500 mg to treat the virus and Vicodin 500 mg for pain. Also, I am instructed to go to an Ophthalmologist because the shingles are around my eye. So I went to my ophthalmologist, Dr. Tobe Rubin, and get steroid eye drops and Bacitracin ophthalmic salve. She said the virus is not in my eye at this time. For a few nights I had some white stuff caked in my mouth. I brushed it out with peroxide and water. | |
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