This is a gay mans struggle with shingles barely in my 30’s when the first case hit me with what felt of a heart attack or maybe even a stroke sensation the pain was unbearable. I though I could never go through it again and then a few years later it attached again. The first time it was mainly on the backside in a vertical show of blisters or dots on my back which were painful and itchy. You think chickenpox is bad which this virus is in the same family, you will find out this virus is far worse and can pretty much cripple your plans to do things in a normal environment and may keep you out of the public for awhile.

The second part of Shingles came on this summer right after I was re-potting trees outside in my backyard I got some dirt in my face which could have been a factor, My computer at home went out on me causing about as much stress as an animal dying because my computer is a human to me it has all my tax and business info on it and is something I cannot loose. Well It was lost as the motherboard crashed and they are telling me I cannot save my harddisk. The computer is still in repair at Sony and that could take months as slow as they are. Another factor is we had a trip planned to Puerto Vallarta and the humidity was overwhelming and I could feel myself getting sick but at that point I thought it was a sinus infection with my eye running non-stop. I did start feeling a strange tingling sensation when I laid down that I knew was not allergies. Something bad was going on.

When I returned from PVR I asked the Physicians Assistant what it could be and she said Sininutis. So she gave me the steroid and some Amoxyicilyn antibiotics. I took that for a day then discovered when I laid down there was a deeper, more fierce pain in my head when I laid down which could no way be allergies. There was also slight swelling around my eye. I thought I had some kind of cancer and was really freaking out.

I went back into the doctor this time and not the P.A. and he said as soon as he walked in the room I had Shingles. From there on the pain kept going up and up and it still has not ended. I got on Valtrex for one cycle plus added 3 days for my eye that was completely red. The Eye dr was worried about the redness in my eye and the inflammation in which I took a dilating drop every 3 hours and a steriod in my eye for every hour all during July 4th week and weekend. That will keep you off the lake and away from the bright sunshine. Although its also hard to drive in the daylight like this.

The shingles pain was a non-stop pain that really got annoying and made you just want to hang yourself. Just horrible. Then came the post-neuro pain which may even be worse it is SERIOUS and something my body just had to give me. The post pain has lasted now about 2 weeks and about 3 times a day it flares up somewhere on the head or eye area and then gives me this outrageous pain that even a terrorist suspect or someone on the electric chair would not even feel. This is a pain that feels like its going across the side of my head and back to the back and then in one targeted area near my eye with the piercing pain.

The shingles affected me from my right nose to my eye brow area around my eye lid over to the sides and all the way up to the end of the right scalp which is a horrible place to have this because there will be no combing or washing of the hair.

I have started taking Gabapentin which has helped some but yet I still get these 1 or 2 a day hardcore targeted pains that make me want to go into a seizure. Ambien for sleep and still doing the steroid eye drops even though my eye is still very irritated and blurry mostly.

I hope this ends it is killing me, hurting my business, and most of all taking away from my time I spend with others. With this horrible Shingles and Post pain it is really hard to be able to have dinner with friends or simple things like exercising. I am scared to get into the pool in case the water hits my head the wrong way and brings me into a pain measure.

I plan on going to the pain dr to hope something will help with this and pray that it ends soon because I do not think my body can handle much more of it.