I Have Shingles and It Hurts Really Bad

I guess the title pretty much sums up what life has been like for the past four weeks for me.  I have shingles and this is something I never thought I would experience in my 40’s.  It’s been a wild ride finally getting a diagnosis, because not only do I have shingles, but I have really stubborn shingles that went undiagnosed for three weeks.

The Pain Starts

Three weeks ago I started having pain right under my left ribcage. My skin in this spot felt numb and times, tingly at others.  I was having this deep, aching pain also almost in the middle of my chest and my back hurt.  I went to an urgent care clinic here in town, but with my history of heart surgery and the fact that they didn’t have the proper equipment to run some heart tests, they immediately referred me to the emergency room.  I was almost positive it wasn’t my heart because it didn’t feel like it was my heart if that makes any sense.  I followed orders and went straight on to the emergency room, where I spent the next 8 hours.

They ran some blood tests and took x-rays.  Everything came back great, except that my magnesium level was critically low.  I was given a magnesium infusion and sent on my way home with orders to come back if anything changed.

Two weeks rolled around and nothing had changed.  I still felt bad, still had pain, but nothing was worse.  It was just annoying at that point, so I finally was able to get in to see a doctor I had seen after my heart surgery.  He did more x-rays and told me he thought it was something musculoskeletal and gave me a prescription for Ibuprofen.

Three days after I saw this doctor I was getting dressed for bed and noticed that some tiny bumps were forming where I was having pain around my rib area. I let our school nurse at work take a look the next morning and she definitely agreed that it looked like shingles.  I went immediately back to see the doctor I saw a few days earlier, but he was out of the office, so I saw an NP at the same clinic.  She confirmed the shingles diagnosis and gave me a prescription for anti-virals.  I already take Gabapentin for neuropathy, so that would have been the next thing she would have prescribed for nerve pain.  I got my medicines filled and went home to start the healing process.

Off Work

I doctored myself over the weekend.  I took my medications and decide to take Monday off work to rest up a little more.  I felt very tired, but I was positive by Tuesday I would be good to go.  However, Tuesday rolled around and I woke up feeling like I had literally been flattened by a truck.  The Ibuprofen was doing absolutely nothing for my pain and I knew I would never be able to function unless I got some pain relief.  I called back to the clinic but the doctor was out yet again and I wouldn’t be able to see him until Thursday.  I decided to go back to the urgent care clinic where I started because I know the doctor there as well and I knew she would help me if she could.

And help me she did!  She prescribed a lidocaine cream, a muscle relaxer for my back, and some Hydrocodone Acetamenaphine.  Honestly, out of all the three, the lidocaine cream has been a game-changer.  It definitely calms the rash.  However, the pain of shingles is awful, so the other meds have helped, but they leave you feeling extremely tired.  I ended up having to take all of the rest of the week off of work.

Pain

Let me just say out of all of my surgeries, shingles definitely hurts worse than recovering from a c-section or having my gallbladder removed.  It’s not the same level of pain as recovering from heart surgery, but boy is it close.  The pain just feels very, very deep in my skin…just an extreme soreness.  It hurts to cough even. It hurts down to my bones.  I am writing this on day 8 and today has been rough.  I’m sure once I’m recovered I’ll have some things to add about this whole experience, but it has been very, very tough.

I naively thought shingles only happened to older people.  A few of my friends have shared their experiences of having it and some are even younger than me.

Just from doing a google search for shingles, I am very fortunate that it looks like as far as rashes go, my case was pretty mild.  I am very thankful for that.

UPDATE:  I started writing this post over two weeks ago and I am finally finishing it and publishing it.  I’m still in a pretty good amount of pain.  Some days are better than others, but I’m still using the lidocaine cream, Tylenol, and ibuprofen.  Praying this, too, shall pass.