I'm back!

We have been out of town since Thursday and I was too busy to write anything just prior to leaving. I volunteered Monday and was then asked to work at Stein Mart on Tuesday. (I shouldn't have, but I wanted to!) Wednesday I had an afternoon appt. in Nashville I couldn't miss and I also had to pack, as well as bake, for our trip. We were invited to visit friends at their mountain home in Gatlinburg and go to the Vandy/UT game with them (they have a sky box at UT) on Saturday. (I totally kept it to myself that I'm not a UT fan! I didn't want to get thrown out of the box.)

These friends are friends we know through our close friends, Mark and Anita, who were already planning to go. Johnny and Kay (our hosts) are long time friends of Mark and Anita, so that is how we met them. And they asked Mark and Anita to invite us come with them for the weekend. We had a lot of fun and got home last night. But there's more to the story...

I'm going to post about this in case anyone reading it ever develops what I've had. Maybe you can recognize the symptoms more quickly than I did. Time is important. I have a mild case of shingles! And here's how it started:

About ten days ago, I started having pain in the left side of my head. I think it was a week ago Saturday. I know it started over the weekend because I remember mentioning it to someone Monday at the church. It seemed to start about ear level and it hurt all the way up to my forehead, near my hairline. I always tend to think I'm making a big deal out of nothing. So I didn't want to react like a hypochondriac. But it was a weird pain that I had never experienced before and it felt nerve-related. When I touched a make up brush to certain areas, it caused pain! It was like I had such a severe bruise that my skin couldn't tolerate a blush brush!

It was hard to describe. But the best way I could convey what I felt was that it felt very sore and tender, like I had injured myself. But I hadn't. I told John one night after we went to bed that if I didn't know better, I would say I must have walked into a door post in the middle of the night because that was how it felt. The few sharp pains I had came and went. They were not constant. But the soreness and tenderness was constant. And it just felt like something was not normal. I did not go to the doctor. I tried to ignore it. But it didn't go away.

A few days later, I noticed what looked like three little pimples on my upper left forehead. And, thinking they were pimples, I wondered if that was what had caused the rest of my pain. I still didn't go to the doctor or even think about going.

Thursday morning I noticed that the pimples looked like they were becoming blisters. But I still wasn't that concerned. Shingles had crossed my mind because I've heard it's similar to chicken pox (which I had as a child), but I had always heard the pain was pretty intense and my pain was tolerable. So I didn't think it could be that. I figured it would just get better on its own. I still didn't want to react like an alarmist.

On the way to Gatlinburg, I told Mark and Anita about this weird pain, how it started, that my little bumps were now looking like little sores. And I showed Anita (because we were sitting in the back seat together). She and Mark both said, "It looks and sounds like shingles." And then I started to get a little worried. But we were on our way out of town for a long weekend. So I still did nothing except hope it would go away (wondering if I would be sorry later).

Friday morning the little blisters looked a bit worse and they were surrounded by an upraised area all around them, kind of like a welt. AND I had developed a new little bump on my left inner eye lid. It was itchy and starting to get inflamed. And this really did worry me because if shingles get in your eye, they can threaten your eyesight.

Mark has RA, so he had prednisone with him. Everyone agreed that I should take it and then see Mike as soon as we got home. I think that turned out to be a really good decision. I took 2 mg. Saturday morning and 2 mg. Sunday morning. I took Advil for the pain. And the pain wasn't severe enough to keep me from having a good time the rest of the trip. But I was worried about the bump on my eyelid turning into a blister like the ones on my head. My doctor thinks that taking the prednisone may have prevented that.

When we got home last night, my mother in law was here. She came early for Thanksgiving. And I knew she would know if I had shingles because she's had them (a bad case). She took one look and said she was almost sure that's what I had. So John called our doctor (and friend) and he met us at his clinic. He's such a nice guy. He comes to our house and gives us our flu shots every year. I was very thankful I had someone I could call who would drop everything and take care of me.

He agreed it looked and sounded like typical shingles after hearing the whole story. He gave me a steroid shot and put me on Valtrex. I took two last night and will take three per day for the next seven days. If I didn't show immediate improvement, he said we might not have caught it early enough (meaning I would still possibly get worse) and he wanted me to see an opthamologist today to make sure there was no virus in my eye. But when I called this morning and told him how much better I was already, he said there's no way I could be getting better if I was going to get worse. And if the bump on my eye still wasn't becoming a blister, it wasn't going to. I probably avoided that by taking the Prednisone in Gatlinburg. And I was fortunate in that I obviously had a mild case.

This morning, I am still aware that there is some type of abrasion on my forehead. But I wouldn't even call it pain. And it looks like the blisters are beginning to heal. The inflammation on my eyelid is significantly lessened. There isn't even any redness, although it is not totally gone yet. The worst pain I had was last night just before seeing Mike. I think my nerves made the pain worse because I was scared I had let it go too long and it might be in my eye. I noticed that the pain level greatly increased with my anxiety. I guess that makes sense, since it's a nerve related virus.

The silver lining is that if I get no worse and I was fortunate enough to have a very mild case, I am possibly better off for having this now. Shingles are much worse when you are older. And there is very little chance you'll get them again after you've had them, unless your immune system becomes severely compromised from chronic illness and/or harsh treatment like chemo. So it's not a guarantee that I'll never have them again. But the body develops antibodies to fight it which gives you some future immunity as long as your immune system remains healthy.

I really think I'm on the mend and I'm so thankful I didn't have a bad case. But I think sharing this experience could be extremely valuable to someone reading this. So I wanted to take the time to post it. If I had gone straight to the doctor when I had the weird pain, I may have avoided having ANY of the blisters. By the way, this is what they looked like over the weekend:

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