"I do not think that word means what you think it means..."

(from Princess Bride)

Shingles is a pain in my side. Fortunately for me, it's more a mental anguish that my body doesn't have energy than a literal pain in my side or on my head. My co-workers have not been as lucky. My one co-worker has it on her scalp and she can't brush her hair and she says that by 3pm it feels like someone has been pulling her hair all day.

And all the literature says, "Immuno-suppressed." Well, I may be fighting boils left and right, and I know my co-worker and I are both under a lot of stress as things change at work, but I have heard enough stories from people that weren't dying from cancer and shingles was just a symptom, a flag that said, oh guess what, you are REALLY sick.

And it's not just old people. It seems that Shingles is as pervasive as Mono, just not as well understood. I've heard of 14 year olds getting it, college students getting it...

Oh, and here's something. When you get it, start taking B vitamins and Vitamin C at therapeutic levels *right away* and aggressively. Your doctor won't tell you because "it's not proven that those work" (from my friend who is married to a doctor and deals with too many doctors). Avocado is a good food to eat a lot of. Also beta carotene.

This is not a scientific blog, but a place for me to be frustrated with the status quo of how doctors and patients operate in this first world country. It's all about germs and not about your body's mechanisms to fight it.