- A little over a week ago I got diagnosed with shingles,
and to be more specific, oral shingles.
(upbeat music)
Shingles is a viral infection that usually shows up
as a rash, typically on people it shows up on their torso,
but for me it happened in my mouth.
And it came on really quickly.
And it's a little more rare for it to happen that way.
For me, initially, it felt like jaw pain,
like I had been clenching my teeth all night.
I woke up one morning, and my teeth, and my jaw,
and the jaw muscles here really, really hurt.
And I thought that was kind of weird.
And the next day I started getting
these sort of cold sore blister things inside my mouth.
And they started coming up out of my, the lip of my mouth.
The the pain was worse, and this part of my chin,
or jowl, I don't know. (laughs)
There's a lymph node there,
and it started to swell up really big.
I could feel it in my neck.
(upbeat music)
This whole side of my face was swelling up.
It did not feel good,
and I ended up doing sort of a telehealth doctor visit
with my primary care physician.
So based on looking at it,
she was a little surprised I didn't have a fever,
but she knew it was a viral infection.
And my ear had started to hurt really, really bad.
And so she gave me some antibiotics
and an antiviral medicine and said, "Take these.
It should deal with it kind of on both fronts."
Then the next day it was even worse.
I looked like this.
It was not cute.
And Jessica called my primary care physician
and said, "What should he do?"
And she said, "He needs to go to the ER."
I was nervous to go to the ER.
I didn't really want to since, in California,
we've been having a spike of COVID-19 cases.
I thought that this would go away.
I already had medicine for it,
but Jessica told me that I really should go.
And I'm glad that she did.
They took my temperature at the door,
made sure that I didn't have any COVID symptoms,
then I went up to the front desk.
There were lots of barriers between me and everybody.
Everybody had face masks on.
There was nobody in the waiting room.
It seems like they had shifted how they did things
'cause I've gone to this hospital before,
and usually there's a lot of people in the waiting room.
There's a long wait.
You end up being in the hospital for an extended period
of time while they run tests and things like that.
And that wasn't how it ran at all.
It was very smooth. I didn't see a single other patient.
I knew there were other patients there
'cause I could hear them in other rooms,
but the way that they did their social isolation,
I was really impressed with.
Anyway, this doctor came in.
She looked at me, she asked me what my symptoms were,
and she said, "You have shingles."
I told her what medication the other doctor had put me on,
and she said. "Okay, I'm gonna up that.
I'm gonna put you on some steroids,
and we're gonna do some blood work
because the way this presents itself, typically,
is with someone who's older
or who has some immunocompromised situation going on,
like leukemia or something like that.
So we're gonna check your blood work."
And they took my blood.
They gave me steroids.
They gave me a prescription, and they sent me home,
and said, "We'll call you with the results."
The results came back fine.
There's nothing wrong with my blood. Everything is good.
The doctor also said that since it's in my face
that I should look into Ramsay Hunt Syndrome
and that she doesn't think I have it,
and she doesn't think I'm gonna have it,
so don't worry too much about it, but look into that.
I was sort of confused as to how I got this.
My whole family has been really strict with staying away
from public places.
We haven't gone out at all.
We get deliveries to our house,
but we don't go to the store.
We don't go to events.
We are completely socially isolated.
The few times that we've gone to doctors' appointments
or dental appointments, we've had masks on.
We're super, super careful.
So I didn't understand how I could have gotten this disease.
And it turns out I got it when I was eight.
This is like an adult form of chickenpox.
So if you get exposed to chickenpox as a kid,
it's still in your body, and it can be brought about
by things like having an immune system issue
or by high levels of stress.
And it seems like, since my blood work came back,
that's probably where this came from
was some level of stress.
It's weird that it would come in at this point in my life.
I feel like I've had more stressful times. (laughs)
As part of me getting better with this,
I'm gonna be doing a lot more stuff to try
and de-stress myself.
And I'd love to know, in the comments of this video,
if you have advice for that, like what de-stresses you.
What's a good, good thing for me to look into
or do that would help me not be a stressed person?
(laughs) Okay, here's all the medication I've been taking.
(bottles clacking)
The first doctor prescribed this. It's a Z-Pak.
It was like five days of antibiotics.
I don't think that I needed that,
but she was worried that I might have had an ear infection
that was started from the virus
and then needed to get addressed like a bacterial infection.
This is valacyclovir, and I guess it's an antiviral,
but then when I went to the hospital,
she upped the dosage and up the amount of time
that I would be taking it so I ended up taking a lot more
of this than was originally prescribed.
And I think this is the thing that is helping me
from having any long-term damage.
This is prednisone.
It's a steroid.
I think that was to help reduce the swelling.
This one was really complicated.
I had to take six pills the first two days,
four pills the next three days,
two pills the next three days,
and one pill the last three days.
So keeping track of that has been fun.
And then I started off (laughs) just taking MOTRIN,
and the pain was really bad.
I couldn't sleep at night.
We ended up calling my primary care physician,
and they told me to take four of these
every time I have a meal, so three times a day
to have four of these,
plus one to two Extra Strength TYLENOL,
and that they would work together to help with the pain.
There was this nerve pain that started getting really,
really intense, and I still feel it.
And for that, they prescribed this gabapentin,
which is very specific medication
that I think they only give to people that have seizures
and people that have shingles.
And, basically, it's a nerve inhibitor
or something like that it stops your nerve
from reacting or something.
And you have to take it for two or three days
before it starts working.
And I'm on my third day now,
and I think it has started working,
so today has been the best that I've felt
through the whole thing.
I've had video projects that were like almost edited
that just would take five minutes of editing,
and I couldn't even do it.
The pain, and me falling asleep, and feeling just gross,
and unable to focus had really took me out
of working just entirely.
And the number one thing that the doctors,
all the doctors I talked to, said was
that you need to get rest and not be stressed out.
Just get as much rest as possible
and drink lots and lots of water.
(upbeat music)
There are also a few restrictions
that have been really difficult for me, personally. (laughs)
The first couple days, I had purchased some ice cream
because the ice cream felt really good,
and it sorta like soothed me, and it was calming,
and had a taste that was like ah,
like comfort food, basically.
As I started researching this,
and as Jessica started researching this,
we found fatty foods that are sugary
and dairy-based aren't really the best things for me now.
They actually block some of the medication from working.
So that that hurt a little bit.
Also you're not supposed to have caffeine,
and I was a really heavy coffee drinker.
I would drink a lot of coffee.
I haven't had any coffee in over a week,
which I know doesn't sound like that big of a deal,
but for me, that's a big deal.
Coffee was how I woke up in the morning,
how I approached new projects.
I would have a cup of coffee like that's...
It was (laughs) very ingrained in me.
I'm kind of hoping that after I get all better,
and I'm able to drink coffee again
that I drink less of it after this.
I know I can go a whole week without any of it,
so I'm pretty sure I could drink a lot less in the future.
I'm kind of hoping that's a lasting benefit to this.
The other restrictions that were really, really difficult,
I actually teared up a little bit in the hospital
when the doctor told me this,
that I couldn't touch my kids.
I couldn't touch my, like hold my baby. (laughs)
And that was really hard to hear.
And it's been really hard to do 'cause he reaches for me.
We're like best buddies.
We're like really, really good friends,
and we play together all the time.
And so that part of it's been pretty tough.
So Jessica has had chickenpox before.
Bailey's fully vaccinated for chickenpox.
The boys, I think they have like one shot left
or something like that.
They're not fully vaccinated for it.
And Luke is so little that he can't be vaccinated
for chickenpox yet.
There is a vaccination for shingles,
but it is usually not recommended for people
until they're over the age of 50.
Typically, if you're under the age of 50,
they don't give you that vaccination.
According to most of the websites that I've looked at,
once the sort of oozing
pustule stuff
dries up and is no longer there,
that I'm no longer contagious,
and I'll be able to play with my kids,
and not have any worry about infecting them.
The infection, technically, is chickenpox,
so it wouldn't be like the end of the world
if they got sick with chickenpox.
I got chickenpox.
Most kids get chickenpox as kids,
but especially with Luke, I don't know what,
if there would be any complications
because he has the microdeletion or because he's so young.
I just don't know, and I didn't want to risk it.
(upbeat music)
The things that have been getting me through this so far,
the main, the absolute biggest thing,
is Jessica just helping me.
If she hadn't called the primary care physician
and encouraged me to go to the hospital when she did,
I probably would have lost some senses,
like sense of feeling, or motion here, or in my ear
because I wasn't taking enough medicine.
She's been taking care of Luke non-stop.
We're very, like co-parents.
We both help out with the kids.
I haven't been able to help out at all.
Her having to take up all of that
and take care of me has been amazing.
Bailey's been a big help with the baby as well,
and my parents actually came and took three of our kids
over to their house to help out as well.
Jacob, Parker, and Duncan have been over there
while I've been recovering.
Other things that helped me that might help you
if you have oral shingles,
smoothies seem to help me out a lot
and miso soup.
Both of those were really comforting, and easy to eat,
and then I could take my medicine
'cause you have to take the medicine with food.
I was able to get an ice cream substitute.
It's a plant-based ice cream with more natural sugar,
and it's not, it didn't quite fit
into the same (laughs) category
as the Ben & Jerry's that I had been enjoying.
It still gave me this soothing, cooling feeling,
which was really nice so that was also good to have.
And a ice pack.
Ice packs not on the actual sores,
but around here was really, really helpful
to minimize the pain.
Where am I right now, most of the rash is gone,
but I still have a lot of jaw pain,
and, particularly, it feels kind
of like a raw nerve
or something like that.
If you were getting dental work done without any Novocaine
or something like that, and they hit a nerve,
that's what it feels like,
especially when I drink water.
My ear has a lot of weird stuff going on with it.
Sounds or sometimes muffled,
Noises are really irritating or painful,
like sounds feel like grinding, or like screech,
like screeching.
I don't really have the whole nails-on-chalkboard thing.
That doesn't bother me that much,
but this is what I assume people feel
when they have that.
I'm like that with every sound.
And then dizziness.
I have something called vertigo which has to do
with your ear, like your ear helps you balance.
And when I walk into a room, or I stand up,
or sometimes even when I'm just sitting down,
or reading, or concentrating on something,
just all the sudden everything starts moving,
and I can't...
I have to just stop and let the world stop spinning
in order to keep going and doing what I'm doing.
Anyway, that has been my journey through this.
If you or someone that you know is currently feeling this,
I'm sorry. It's a lot of pain.
You will get through it.
Take your medicine, drink lots of water,
get as much rest as you can.
And I just wanna thank everybody
that watches this channel regularly
for your patience with us uploading.
We haven't been uploading as frequently,
and it might still be a little while
before we're back up to the speed that we were at,
but all the kind words that we've had
through Twitter, and Instagram,
and the comments section here have been really great.
So thank you so much.
And, yeah, just thanks for watching,
and we'll see you next time.
(gentle music) (child laughing)