I am now officially little over two weeks dealing with this viral disease known as shingles. I wanted to give a quick update with how I’m doing right now for anybody interested in learning or actually going through this disease presently as well. As I previously said before shingles is absolutely no joke, I am not trying to scare anyone believe me. I am simply being honest and stating the facts as I have experienced them the past two weeks, the good and the bad.
Unfortunately, I wish I had very good news to report however I have not been feeling so great lately. Even though I like to say things are relative and they are; I had hoped by this point I would be feeling much better. Compared to my first week of shingles affecting me straight on, I do feel better relatively. Like I said before I’m not a doctor nor am I in the medical field, however I have researched shingles for quite amount of time. I wanted to educate myself so I would have a better understanding of what would occur normally with anyone afflicted with shingles.
In a nutshell, every day of last week on a scale of 1 to 10, was a 10 in terms of pain and discomfort. For my second week I will describe it more like a six or five depending on the day. Quite frankly I don’t know if I’ve been lucky or not but this seems a pretty good outcome for week two, however there is a rub. What made the first week so bad was the combination of the burning, intense pain and the flulike symptoms. The flu like signs and symptoms were basically a continuous feeling of fatigue, fever and chills. It essentially felt like a very bad case of the flue.Like I said before the first week with shingles was absolutely brutal, it was hard to get through the day I spend most my time in bed.
Thankfully my second week I spent mostly exhaustion and fever free. First the fever subsided and then I slowly regained my strength. This has helped tremendously with getting back to normal and not feeling as sickly as before. I still feel somewhat tired at times; however, the present pain and discomfort continue. Unfortunately having to deal with this persistent pain throughout the day does have a tendency to tire me out mentally as well as physically. Dealing with the pain off and on throughout the day does get strenuous fairly quickly. Having said all this the pain and discomfort level is far less than first week I had shingles. Hence my stress/energy levels and coping with shingles is getting better by the day.
The shingles rash has subsided quite a bit thankfully, the first week was excruciating at times in terms of pain and burning sensations. In the first week the rash was fairly red in color and quickly developed painful blisters as well. During the second week the rash and blisters began to crust over and fade away. The skin breakout changed in appearance from red to a more pinkish color and the blisters started to heal one by one.
At this point I really can’t wait to feel fully normal again. There are stretches of time that I am almost pain free, however the pain and the burning return to haunt me. Even though I feel much better there are times when the pain is still very strong and the burning sensations continue. By the end of the second week I can honestly say I feel better however I am constantly being reminded that I still have shingles.