Wolf Goes to the Doctor, 2006 Edition
 

For those of you who don't know, I'm not big on going to the doctor, not big at ALL. I actually found out today that I was last at my PCP's office in February, 2003. This was related to my Gall Bladder removal.

One of the ways that I get away with not going to the doctor is that I have a physician handy 40+ hours per week. Usually, he comes through for me, gives me the hook up on the Z-pack, or whatever I might need.

Well, last night, the only thing he told me was "go see your family doctor."

Which, incidentally, was exactly the right call, even if I didn't realize it at the time.

Three days ago, I felt a little yucky.

Two days ago, I found a blotchy looking thing on the left side of forehead.

Yesterday, I found four more smaller blotchy things on the left side of my forehead, and a swollen and painful gland on the left side of my neck.

Today, I did the smart thing for a change and went to see a doctor. Today I found out that I have Shingles.

Not the roofing kind, but the Chicken Pox virus that hides in your nervous system until you least expect it and BAM ... it sneaks up on you through your nerve pathways and makes you feel icky and have pain and itching and tingling with no actual cause other than the nerves get all confuzzled and send inaccurate messages to your brain. You know that thing where you feel someone touching you on the shoulder or tugging at your hair (gently) and you whip your head around and you can't see them? It's like that feeling. Over and over and over at random.

Because of the particular location the Shingles chose to emerge, there is also danger that my eye can become infected.

I have a couple of different kinds of meds, none of which will actually cure the virus, but the doc hopes will shorten the course of the disease, and one to try to keep it out of my eye.

Yes, it is really gross.

No, I don't intend to take pictures.

On the upside, the Infection Control Practitioner won't allow me back at work until I'm dry and crusted, even though the doctor told me that I'd be fine just so long as I wore a bandanna over the area.

I am only contagious to people who have never had Chicken Pox. You can't transmit Shingles to anyone else, but you can transmit Chicken Pox by contact.

Well now you have a great excuse to rest up and take a load off. I hope you're feeling better soon Wolf. Shingles is a really annoying virus to have. Good you went to the docs though. ;)

It's HERPES! Ew! :p and the Doc is right - you DON'T want it in your eye. I just heard that there's a new vaccine for it. Apparently, shingles is the leftover chicken pox, that hangs around until your immune system is low and then it attacks.

It can also reemerge when you are under a lot of stress. I wonder where I got any of that recently??

I also heard about the shingles shot. Today. After it's too damn late.

After this clears up I may look into information on it and make a decision then.

I did go to a very nice Opthalmologist today. She was able to fit me in on an emergency basis. Props to Dr. Amy Weber in Wyndmoor.

Dr. Amy Weber worked in this very office, part time, when she was a resident. She has incredibly blue eyes, doesn't she? I'm glad to hear she treated you well.

Oh wolf, that sucks! I had them when I was 12 and wouldn't wish that shit on anyone.

I had the Chicken Pox at 14 or so, a moderate case. My sister got the really bad version.

I may ultimately decide to switch to her rather than staying with the guy at the Chain Eye Glass Store that I've been going to for the last couple of years because of the overall convenience.

o. That sucks like a pail of leeches. to cheer you up I offer this trio of herpes related humor particles:

1) The new social disease ravaging the nerd community?
(Twerpies)
2) The new social disease ravaging the bird community?
(Chirpies)
3) What is most heart breaking about it?
(It's un tweetable)

There. Don't you feel immeasurably better?

Aw...I hope you get better soon. Stress causes the immune system to weaken. Its good you went to the doc...why do you hate it so much?

Because it's simpler, I've just been telling people I come into contact with that I've got plague.

While I'd prefer not to come in contact with anyone, there are home health aides, PT, OT, & Nurses tromping through the house throughout the day.

OH it's the frigging fleas! BASTARD cats. Damn them.:thepain:

I'm really sorry to hear about this. My dad just had a bout with the shingles. It laid him up for a while a few months ago, and combined with his age appears to have sapped his strength.

Take care of yourself.

Bad stress-BAD!

I'm not so sure not going to work will relieve a large percentage of your stress, but it'll help. Let me know if I can pick up some eye of newt or bat toenails at the market, for you.;)

Sorry to read of your problem, Wolf. Take it easy, take your meds, and get better really fast.

Does that mean we will get to see more of you (figuratively - since you did the *no pics* disclaimer) around the cellar for a while wolf???

Shingles are the worst. Right up there with bladder infections. The only good thing is that it forces (FORCES!) you to rest and be good, kind, sweet and loving to yourself--the best Rx for a nasty virus.

Be well soon, wolf. Lots of fluids! I like OJ and Sprite, myself, with lots of ice and a blue straw.

I was very disappointed to learn that for the purposes of "pleny of fluids," coffee is not considered a fluid.

Please take good care, Wolf. Sounds like you've got a handle on it. May I recommend that you read up on and consider taking lysine for this? I know a few people who have gotten much relief from shingles outbreaks by taking this amino acid.

It is not Herpes: "Shingles, also called herpes zoster or zoster, is a painful skin rash caused by the varicella zoster virus (VZV). VZV is the same virus that causes chickenpox. After a person recovers from chickenpox, the virus stays in the body. Usually the virus does not cause any problems; however, the virus can reappear years later, causing shingles. Herpes zoster is not caused by the same virus that causes genital herpes, a sexually transmitted disease."

Shingles info. It can be very nasty and uncomfortable. My aunt had a particularly bad bout on her back and upper buttocks awhile back. To the point clothes simply touching her skin hurt. I wish you a speedy speedy recovery Wolf. I do look forward to more of you around here htough when you are up to it. :)

My mom had two bad cases and a brother-in-law had it on his face causing some hearing loss and his eyelid to droop on that side. Be careful!

I've had chicken pox twice -- the second time much worse than the first. So I'm either very over it or a major 'carrier'. I'm just now in the middle of Hep A and rabies vaccinations so I'm now worried about messing up my immune system.

ugh. A coworker had shingles a few years back, it covered her neck, shoulder and chest on one side. She came through with flying colors, but said it sucked big time. She had some remedies that eased the pain, if I knew where she was living I'd find out about em. That was before we had Google, though, so you'll probably do just as well there.

I've been given a lot of advice, including some aromatherapy preparations that even if they don't directly address the disease, should at least make me feel more in harmony with the universe.

Luckily the nerve branch that got activated is short, so I've got more localized symptoms.

Speaking of which, it's time to put goo in my eye again.

Not scratching itches that have no basis in reality is more than a little disconcerting.

Does a bath help?

It is herpes. I didn't mean to infer that it is "that" kind of herpes any more than chicken pox is "that" kind of herpes.

From what I've heard it's very painful. Take care.


You know?
Your job would wear anyone down. You should be yelling, punching walls or at the least protecting yourself in a passive way if those things don't do it for ya.

Do paintball wars or ...something. lol, This might sound silly but stress has got to come out someway...if your not venting.

Oh man... I am so sorry to hear that. You are always so fun (at least online) and with all that do, especially taking care of your mom, you deserve to be happy and healthy. My grandmother had shingles a year or so ago, but hers wasn't that bad as far as I know. I wish that you have only mild discomfort (as you can't avoid it entirely) and a fast recovery.

Like most posters I know other people who've had it & it's nasty.

Good luck with it, and get well soon. Look after yourself!

Hope you start feeling better soon, wolf!

I had shingles about 13 years ago. I thought only old people got it - I was only 33 but was under a lot of stress for a long period of time.

I had it on the nerves that wrap around from the lower vertebra around the front from both sides just under the last rib and holy freakin' hell that hurt worse than anything.

I am very sorry you have to deal with shingles and hope its a mild, short-lived case.

YA know, your insistance on facts is really taking the edge off my humor attempts at cheering up Wolf. Just for that, I'm gonna have to type another joke. Let that be a lesson to you.

Wolf: as you no doubt know, if not form your own experience, then from all the attributions given herein, shingles is painful and it sucks and it may or may not be a form of herpes despite its name.
However,
At least you are not like one of my friends who had a patient with only two remaining synapses which were connected by a spirochete and had just been put on pennicylin...

I think beer is still considered a fluid, don't check though, jsut to be sure.

I had chickenpox when I was an infant, along with my older sister and 3 neighbor kids. All 5 of us got shingles at different times in our pre or early teens.

edit: I had it down the length of my spine - still have a small scar and some numbness...

Our back up fencing instructor's little girl got shingles soon after her chicken pox vaccine..... huh whodda thought?... insert theory here.

Be well Wolf.

There is a treatment much better than Zovirex, Wolf. I can highly recommend it since I had my introduction to shingles/herpes more than 30 years ago, when a friend came to visit me for a week and assured me he had been to the doctor about that mysterious and painful eruption and was told it was harmless cold sores. I wish! Pain so bad that I could not stand light, headaches worse than migraines, nausea, it really DID feel like I caught a plague. The best, at least the only half-way good thing about it, is the outbreak that comes first will be the worst one. You'll always be prone to having it pop out again, especially when you are run-down and stressed, but it will be nothing like what you are experiencing now and you will recognize the signs a day in advance and take immediate measures.

The treatment is L-LYSENE. The first day you take three 1,000-unit tabs and 2 each night afterwards until the eruption goes away. Lysene works on other viruses too, for some reason once your body become saturated with this enzyme the virus cannot stay active. The Lysene tabs are horse chokers and taste chalky and horrible, so if I can't get them down I crush them in a mortar and mix them with cheese spread to kill the flavor. Please try it, I swear it works like magic.

And do not eat any chocolate or nuts, that can actually bring on another outbreak for me.

Let's get techincal, technical... I wanna get tecnical, technical...:p

Yes, shingles are a type of herpesvirus. I was under the impression that Spexxvet meant Wolf had 'herpes', meaning the cause of coldsores. Both types of virus, (and 'mono' too, if you've ever had that) are all techinacally herpesviruses, but they are completely different species.

Sorry, miscommunication.


From Here: With color added by me for clarity. (specific species in black)

Taxonomic Structure of the Family
Family 00.031. Herpesviridae

Subfamily 00.031.1. Alphaherpesvirinae
Genus 00.031.1.01. Simplexvirus cause of the infamous coldsore...
031.1.01.003. Human herpesvirus 1 (Herpes simplex virus 1)
00.031.1.01.004. Human herpesvirus 2 (Herpes simplex virus 2)
Genus 00.031.1.02. Varicellovirus
00.031.1.02.015. Human herpesvirus 3 . (Varicella-zoster virus) what people with chickenpox and shingles have
Genus 00.031.1.03. Mardivirus
Genus 00.031.1.04. Iltovirus

Subfamily 00.031.2. Betaherpesvirinae
Genus 00.031.2.01. Cytomegalovirus What preggo moms tested for when pregnant, because can cause troubles in newborns.
Genus 00.031.2.02. Muromegalovirus
Genus 00.031.2.03. Roseolovirus

Subfamily 00.031.3.
Gammaherpesvirinae
Genus 00.031.3.01. Lymphocryptovirus
00.031.3.01.005. Human herpesvirus 4 (Epstein-Barr virus) infectious mononucleosis "mono"
Genus 00.031.3.02. Rhadinovirus
00.031.3.02.011. Human herpesvirus 8 (Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus)

And now, some jokes...:D


Herpes Jokes

TWO LINERS

Q: How does herpes leave the hospital?
A: On crotches

Q: What's the difference between love and herpes?
A: Herpes lasts forever

Q: Which of the following does not belong: AIDS, gonorrhea, herpes, or Bill Clinton?
A: Gonorrhea -- it can be cured.

Q: Why is Michael Irvin (Dallas Cowboys) like herpes?
A: He's embarrassing, goes away for weeks but then comes back, and responds well to drugs.

Q: Why did the dumb blonde name her dog Herpes
A: Because it wouldn't heel

Q: How can you tell if you're staying over at the wrong girl's apartment?
A: The towels in her bathroom are labeled "His" and "Herpes."

Q: What is a nymphomaniac's worst nightmare?
A: Meeting a handsome guy with a real big penis and herpes.

I recall herpes--it was gonna be the scourge of the nation, no? The answer to the sexual revolution, God's revenge.
Lemme tell ya--anyone with a cold sore has herpes.

Just to get technical, just because shingles herpes isn't "that" kind of herpes doesn't mean that Wolf doesn't have "that" kind of herpes. I don't know where her lips have been and who she's been kissin' on.:p

Holy crap, I just read the info on the link from LabRat's post and I think I had shingles!! I thought it was poison ivy at first, but reading about it, I think it was shingles! I have been stressed. Luckily it was only a small patch on my hand.

I know the little patch drove me nuts, I can't imagine having it any worse. Speedy recovery to you, wolf.

You are very wise in the ways of medicine!!

Thanks to everybody else for the information and advice. I will have to try the L-Lysine, but I'm finding the notion of life without chocolate quite depressing.

(oh crap. I had PB on my bagel this morning ... well, maybe I can think of it as the path to another day off of work).

Today's Update: I'm getting into the routine of taking huge pills and squirting goo into my eye.

Unfortunately, my left eyelid decided that it wasn't having enough fun just watching the proceedings from a front row seat and is now swollen, although there are no apparent lesions. The forehead stuff is half scabby, half drippy, so I have decided that this seems better. I am currently waiting to find out if my return to work will be based on assessment by the infection control practitioner, or if I have to get a note from my own doctor (who was of the opinion that I could be at work if I slapped a bandanna over the drippy bits). Overall I am still pretty tired and listless, and spend as much time horizontal as possible.

I'm aiming for Monday, at this point.

On the downside ... I don't think I'll be making the concert that I was looking forward to this weekend. :( (Beru Revue 25th Anniversary Sing-Along.)

I'm giving you a pass on the RFN thread for the next couple days.

Now THAT"S humor.

Oh no!, Is this the event they are taping and plan to release?

Oh man, wolf, that really sucks! I had a shingles breakout once, in my knee--only a small rashy patch, but it hurt like hell. Don't remember what I took for it, but it cleared it up quickly. Hope yours does too.

I need to clarify my statement: You do not have to GIVE UP chocolate and peanuts, just do not eat them until your lesions clear up and for at least a week afterwards. Life is not worth living without chocolate! It's just that I am 10 times more likely to have an outbreak if I just ate an entire jar of peanuts, and it soon became obvious that the herpes would break out again if I didn't lay off more peanuts and chocolate for a few weeks afterwards (both mixed together are as deadly as you can get, i.e., Reese's Peanut Butter Cups). It has been worth it, however, to be able to put an end to the outbreak before it really gets serious. The first indication that I am going to break out is a pounding pain on the left side of my head and lethargy. This starts about 24 hours before the outbreak. I immediately rush for the bottle of Lysene and get three of them down as quickly as possible. There have been times where this actually kept the sores from erupting, my upper lip and inside my earlobe get red and hot but do not go any further and are gone by the next day.

P.S. Something I forgot to mention before: I control the drippy lesions by slathering with BLISTEX. It works nicely and the scabs can be wiped right off with a tissue that way. This beats the treatment the doctor in Albuquerque tried when I had the first episode. He cut away the lesions and filled them with gentian violet and then put my cheek under some kind of purple light. I now have pits on my face from that. In retrospect it sounds like witch doctor treatment, but nobody knew what it was in those days.

Wolf - wanna swap cravings? I can so easily stay off peanuts & chocolate for you, if you can stay off cheese & beer for me.

Sorry to hear bout your eye btw. Despite being hyper sensitive about mine I've never had a proper eye infection and even having my eyes lasered sent me into freak-mode.

Good luck.

PS - post RFN. We need a different version of NSFW :)

Mmmm....cheese and beer. Alllggghhhhh.... (Homer drool)

NSFW! NSFW!

Great. :( You just picked my other two favorite food groups.

Won't be able to trade out on that one ...

Damnit

Garlic? Chillies? Bread?
Meh, what am I thinking, you're a woman of taste (am excluding the Hello Kitty thing here of course :))

That's the one. :greenface

Gentian Violet? Oh god I used to freebase the stuff when I was a kid. I always had these fucking horrible chancre sores inside my mouth where the gums met the cheek. Awful.

We always used Blu-Kote brand gentian violet for the critters. Are you saying you put that stuff in your mouth? :vomit:

I had a friend get shingles after stupidly messing around with Xtasy, the drug.

Come to find out, that since Shingles lives in your spinal column, and drugs like Xtasy and acid have a huge impact and effect on your nervous system/spinal column, they can release things stored there. A bunch of ppl I know who have done Acid or X (never tried either myself) all complain about a stiff neck/back, back pain and tension, which from what another friend told me is the body reacting to the strichnine used to cut the drug (gee, and why is that I never played with hard drugs?:rolleyes: ).

He took too much, and it was released from his spine into this body. It spread over his head entirely, they had to cover his eyes with shot glasses. Eventually it went away, but he was out of commision for quite some time.

Sucks Wolf, hope you get better quickly, not fair to have to deal with somthing like that without a good reason or an obvious fuckup.

Steve

Made an hour long (one way), rush hour traffic drive to the doctor's office to get a note saying I can go back to work tomorrow.

Now that's a dedicated employee. :D
Couldn't they have faxed it to your boss? Or did they want to see you first?

Lately, time out of the house is always good time, even if rush hour traffic is involved.

I suppose I could have had it faxed, but it's actually better that I went in person. I called ahead to make sure that the note would be prepared, gave them several hours to work diligently on it, arrived at the office to have the Officer Manager look at me and say, "Note? What kind of note?"

"A note to clear me to return to work. My name is 'wolf,' spelled double-ewe oh ell eff."

"Oh. We couldn't find your chart. You had shingles? Are they all dry and crusted? Can you wait about 20 minutes until the doctor is done with a patient to have them looked at?"

Less than five minutes of searching in the place where my chart should have been prompted another office worker to say, "hey, there's some more charts over here ..." My chart was in the mystery pile. Should have been refiled a week ago, but at least they found it.

After displaying my scabs to the Office Manager, she wrote a note on a teensy little form (smaller than one of those "while you were out" pads) and faked the doctor's signature on it.

I hope the boss buys it. I'm running short on reasons not to kill my mother.

sorry bout the shingles wolf.
bbro: i used to never ever get poison ivy (and i blatanly walked through it) then I once touch it and then touched my mouth and got soaked into my bloodstream. It was awful I broke out randomly everywhere including my face, and what made the whole xp worse was a guy-friend in my grade (9th) had it on his penis at the same time (he had been pulling weeds and then went and took a piss). Fortunatly I haven't had an obvious case of it since but i can never walk through the woods w/ the same confidence again.
Don't kill your mother wolf unless you know of a good place to hide the body and you're good at acting.

Don't forget the best part - soak the scabs with Blistex and they will wipe right off without causing a scar. But dry it off or put a dressing over it when you go to bed; if it gets rubbed into your eyes while you are tossing around in your sleep, you will be very unhappy about it :neutral:

P.S. Something else I just remembered that the dermotologist told me: direct sunlight is very bad for herpes outbreakes, so stay indoors until you are back to normal.