I'm here in the beautiful Indaiatuba in Brazil at my brother's house
enjoying my holidays over the winter in Canada, and it's summer here in Brazil,
and it's lovely., however in the middle of my holidays I was attacked by shingles,
yes varicella-zoster got me. I'm taking anti virus medication. It's
very painful but I hope I don't develop post-herpetic neuralgia, which is a type of chronic pain.
Zoster is the virus of chickenpox. I had chickenpox when I was a
child. And what happens is the virus remains in my system and when the immune
system drops for some reason, then you... the virus develops, grows again,
multiplies and attacks one of the nerve roots. In my case attacked the S1 the
sacral one on the right side, so the first symptom that I had was a I started
with a pain inside of my thigh like a hamstring puling muscle. I had a straight
leg raising positive, and I tried to stretch I thought it was a muscle pain
but he didn't go away. And three days later - boom - the lesions in the skin
appeared, and then I said "okay this is shingles". The lesions in the skin are like
redness in the background, and then there's vesicles that are full of
virus and I'm not touching, I'm not scratching. It's itchy and sometimes it
looks like a burning sensation but I'm not touching, but I'm applying a cream
the cream contains Acyclovir which is the anti virus medication. Other than
that I'm not doing anything at this point and the lesions are forming some
crusts they are forming like they are healing, and and it can be very itchy, but I
don't touch and I don't I scratch. Zoster actually cannot be transmitted
even though it's a communicable disease I can transmit zoster to anyone else
however the virus that causes the chickenpox virus so I can transmit
chickenpox to someone who didn't have it, but we know that 99% of the population,
the adult population these days, they had chickenpox when they were children, and
nowadays children get the vaccine for chickenpox so they don't actually get
chickenpox but they get vaccinated so the the chances of someone getting
chickenpox from myself is very low, because they either had chickenpox and
they are immune, or they had a vaccine and they would not be able to get it, and
but I can't transmit zoster to anyone because zoster is not transmissible only
people who had chickenpox can develop varicella-zoster. If a person was
vaccinated by chickenpox vaccine they can't develop zoster in adult life.
So the pain that I have is two kinds of pain actually. One is a pain in the
inner thighs it's like a pulled muscle like the hamstrings very tight, and the
other pain is in the skin. The skin is very sensitive. It's a kind of burning
itching, and I am applying a cream and I'm also taking anti-virus medication
Valacyclovir, And I should have taken the vaccine, actually I didn't. I tell
everybody to take the vaccine but I didn't take it. The vaccine is indicated
for people over 50 and I just turned 50 eight months ago. I should have taken the
vaccine. Yes, and I didn't because the vaccine prevents the shingles from
happening and also if it happens it prevents post-herpetic neuralgia, which is
a complication of shingles that happens in 20% of people.
I'm dealing okay. I can walk, I can sleep well in fact. But sometimes it's
hard to walk, it's hard to go up and down stairs, but it's not too much. The pain gets
better with Tylenol. Actually I'm taking Tylenol 1,000 milligrams and the
pain is a lot alleviated with plain tylenol I took Advil once a 400
milligrams of Advil one day also helped, but I don't want to take too much
Advil because of the kidneys. The Valacyclovir
can be toxic to the kidneys and Advil can also be the toxic, so I
don't want to take two medications that are can be toxic to the kidneys, so I'm
taking tylenol 1000 milligrams when the pain is unbearable
and the antivirus for seven days. But the reason that I'm making this video is
actually to tell people to take the vaccine, I should have taken the vaccine
and I didn't. There are two types of vaccines in Canada and so when we go
back to Canada I think I'm going to take it. I was reading about it if I should
take the vaccine even if I had zoster. Should I take or not? But apparently
taking the vaccine is a good idea because it can prevent further episodes
of zoster, and I will take once the the skin lesions disappear maybe in a week
or two and then I will wait another a few months and then I'll take the
vaccine. And there are two types of vaccine. One that is older, it was
developed in I think 2006 this vaccine provides protection of about 50 to 60
percent to Varicela Zoster, and the other one is newer it's about three
years old in this vaccine is much more efficient
it protects in about 95 to 97 percent so the second one the newer one seems to be
the best vaccine to prevent varicela zoster. And anyone who is above age of
50 should take this vaccine so I highly recommend everyone to take
it because zoster is actually something very serious, and I was reading
it's very common it affects 1 million people every year in the United States
so it's a lot a lot of people, and if we think that 20% will develop post
herpetic neuralgia which is a type of chronic pain that's a lot of people
every year that can develop chronic pain. So having the vaccine available take it
please take the vaccine that's an advice that I give to you that I didn't do
myself and now I'm learning the consequences but please go and take the
vaccine the zoster vaccine as soon as possible if you are 50 or above, or if
you have any other condition that... even if you are below 50 years old but
your doctor recommends you to take the vaccine go ahead and take it.
It looks like the predisposing factors for shingles is when the immune system drops
and in my case the only thing that I can relate is that I was taking a lot of sun.
Sunbathing you can see I'm a little tanned from the Sun here and it was very
hot a few days ago it was 35 degrees down here. Today is overcast and it's
nice but a few days ago, a week ago before my shingles started I was under
the Sun and trying to get some suntan and but maybe that's what caused my
immune system the job and this episode of shingles. I love this place you can
see some cows there, some farms over there and there are lots of birds
different birds here and trees it's lovely here this is the city of Indiatuba
Hi I'm back to Canada, as you can see I'm here and it's a snowy day and today it
has been three weeks since my shingles started so I'm going to tell you a
little bit about what happened after I came back. So the blisters started
healing and they formed scabs and in about ten days
they were scabbed and these scabs were starting to fall off
I checked with the occupational health nurse at work to see if I could go back
to work and she said yes because I'm not transmitting chickenpox anymore. so I'm
not contagious and I've been also back to the gym I have been twice to the gym
and be able to do my exercises and I finished the antiviral a one-week
medication that I took the anti virus medication and when I came back here I
still had the a little bit of this skin pain and now it's more itching what I
have now is itching I'm using a cream that I bought in Brazil and it's a
topical cream that helps with the itching and with the hypersensitivity in
the skin and also helps the healing the the scabs and the pain I still have
a little bit of pain deep in my muscles that's a little bit of muscle pain myofascial
pain a little bit of neuropathic pain because I started feeling some pins
and needles and stabbing pain, and then I started getting worried this would about
about a week ago I started getting worried that I would develop post herpetic
neuralgia and I had a prescription for pregabalin that the doctor in Brazil
gave to me and I was thinking should I start on pregabalin? Should I not and I
called a friend pharmacist who helped me immensely to think about if I should
start or not and she helped me to look at: What are the risk factors
or developing post-herpetic neuralgia? So one of the things our older age if a
person is above 60 or 70 years old the chance of developing post-herpetic neuralgia
is higher. If the person is. The acute pain is very severe also that
affects higher the chance of a post-herpetic neuralgia, and also if the skin rash
is very severe so in my case the pain was not so severe, the skin rash was
mild to moderate, and I am 50 years old so I said I'm not in the high-risk group
I don't have any immune problem, immunosuppression which is another factor that
predispose people for post herpetic neuralgia, and so I decided not to start a pregabalin.
At that point the acetaminophen and ibuprofen and dipyrone, they were not
helping with my deep pain, because it was more like a neuropathic and myofascial
pain, so really what helped me a lot was applying TENS the transcutaneous
electrical nerve stimulation, I applied in my lower back here and that was
really excellent because i could work i could concentrate on the things that i
had to do while the TENS was ON. So now I'm not taking any medication I my
paying is very very minor I'm being able to go back to the gym I did not start
pregabalin and three weeks later I would say that I'm very happy with the
results, and again the things that we can do to prevent this from happening is the
vaccine and I regret that I didn't take the vaccine actually I should have taken
and I recommend people to do it I didn't. And I have to wait one year to take
the vaccine and I will take because apparently having the zoster does not
protect me completely from having other shingles and the new vaccine that exists
now protects 97% there are two doses and they protect 97%. So yes I'm going to
take it. Thank you for watching, remember that
this video is not intended to provide medical advice if you think that you
have a medical condition causing your shingles caused or post-herpetic neuralgia
consult your physician to have a proper diagnosis for you. This video
is only for educational purposes. Also if you like this video don't forget to like
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