Yes, I am off my blogging... largely because I have been sick for the past two weeks. Initially I thought it was the onset of my seasonal allergies, so I started to kick my medication into high gear. After a couple of days, my sore throat continued to get worse, so I went and got a strep test. It came back positive. That was a week ago. I took a nap and woke to notice a kind of abrasion just below where my bra strap would be on my side. I thought maybe I had some sort of reaction to the metal of the underwire, not anything that had happened before, but I could think of what else would have caused such a weird reaction. By the middle of the week, it had developed into a full blown rash and was blistering. I had no idea what was going on.
Wednesday night I woke to shooting pains through essentially the same location of the rash. I didn't sleep well at all for the rest of the night, really bad since some of the medication I take is suppose to help with that. Thursday morning, I googled shingles, saw the picture, ran to the school nurse in a panic. Once I was deemed non-contagious, I went through the rest of my day waiting for the 3pm doctor's appointment. I was educated on shingles (the stuff I hadn't read on the internet in the previous hours), loaded up with antivirals and Vicodan and sent on my way. Normally, when I am given pain pills like Vicodan or Percocet, even after the c-sections or the surgery in December, I take them a day or two and them I done. I am starting day four. I am conservative with taking them, but the fact that I take them during them day freaks me out. The pain from the nerve is unrelenting. The rash is healing, but I have been told that the pain can last for weeks or months.
When I was a kid, I had an epic case of chicken pox. When I was at the Kaiser hospital in California, they gathered the interns to display me when I came in to show them what a bad case looked like - at the time, I had them in places that they were unusual. Mercifully, I don't remember the details. From my understanding, shingles is being kinder to me (no face, no eyes), but it is relative. I am just relieved that my boys both were vaccinated against the chicken pox so they won't experience the joys of either. For all the debate over the vaccines and autism, right now, as I am suffering very painfully and I look at Jimmy and know, in my heart that for him, vaccines were not the genesis of his autism. I am glad I vaccinated both boys and the illness that I am suffering through now, even though it is mild in comparison to what it could be, is something that they will never know.
4 comments:
Rachel - I am so sorry you're in such pain. My sister had shingles when she was a child and it was awful. (She was the amazing shingles child, like you were for chicken pox.) I hope you start feeling better soon.
“I am just relieved that my boys both were vaccinated against the chicken pox so they won't experience the joys of either. For all the debate over the vaccines and autism, right now, as I am suffering very painfully and I look at Jimmy and know, in my heart that for him, vaccines were not the genesis of his autism. I am glad I vaccinated both boys and the illness that I am suffering through now, even though it is mild in comparison to what it could be, is something that they will never know.”
This statement may be both misguided and incorrect.
Herein lays the problem of why that vaccine is harming both them, and you.
You contracted shingles because of the chicken pox vaccine. Immunity to varicella zoster virus is life long, but it can be weakened. Just like not exercising, if your immune system is not re-exposed to a prevalent strain, it weakens in it’s response. You were exposed to a strain that you may have been immune from in the past. The problem is when you contract shingles, the strain that you originally had is reactive and may in fact be able to “jump” the vaccine. Contracting chicken pox as a teen or adult is MUCH more dangerous then during childhood.
Remember, most children need two chickenpox vaccines, because the first ones failed because of this jumping issue. Who knows how many more booster they may need over the course of their lifetime.
I saw the advent of my son's autism when antibiotics were introduced to his system with the first ear infections. Even now, when he has to go on them, he becomes more stimmy, less verbal, makes less eye contact. It's weeks after he's off them until he gets back to where he was... I wait for a viable autoimmune theory that relates to the overprescription of antibiotics to come out.
Interesting point about the chicken pox vaccine.
“Even now, when he has to go on them, he becomes more stimmy, less verbal, makes less eye contact. It's weeks after he's off them until he gets back to where he was”
This is a common physiological phenomenon. Antibiotics are indiscriminate. They will kill/clear all, the good and the bad. Antibiotics cause “female” problems because they cannot discriminate. Antibiotics cause behavioral issues in ASD individuals for the same reason. I repeated ask doctors to CONFIRM the necessity of prescription before leaving the office and administer probiotics to all in my family when on antibiotics.
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