shingles vaccine?

[HappyMommy2]

What are your thoughts/experiences on this shingles vaccines (as our parents reach the 60 y mark)?

Scary disease, but so are new vaccines!

[applejuice]

As I understand shingles, the virus lives in the spinal column and comes out through a nerve, somewhere, and manifests on the skin in a rash...? Most people I know who have shingles, get it during times of high stress, so the condition can be controlled to a point. I suppose a person can have the virus for a lifetime and never know it.

It is related to the chicken pox virus, so there is a relationship.

[chelsmm]

The same virus that causes cp causes shingles. You get cp the first time, then, the virus can come out later in life and cause shingles.

[ILoveMyBabyBird]

from what i understand, those who have mild cases of chicken pox are more likely to get shingles. i had a very mild case of chicken pox when i was 4, only like 3 or pox, and I did get an outbreak of shingles when i was 14. Since I was young and relitively healthly i was not at risk for getting a life threatening case. What i also understand is that children who get the chicken pox vax are more likely to get shingles. When a person has shingles, they are able to give others chicken pox, not shingles itself, as they are the same virus, from what i understand. I would think if you're parents are healthy in their old age, or if they had a more severe case of chicken pox as a child, their risk of having a shingles outbreak is low.

[Deborah]

http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/...-sure-why-not/

good overview of chickenpox and shingles

you can't get shingles without having had chickenpox--but some cases of chickenpox are so mild that they aren't noticed at all

I don't think having a mild case of chickenpox has anything to do with having shingles or not having shingles later

[Gitti]

Originally Posted by Deborah

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I don't think having a mild case of chickenpox has anything to do with having shingles or not having shingles later

Exactly!

And you don't get shingles upon the second exposure. Or the third. You get shingles when you are under stress or chemo or nutritionally depleted AND exposed to cp.

[tammyswanson]

Here is what this site says (and it quotes it from an issue of Mothering magazine in 2005):

New research suggests that the US government has unwittingly traded a typically mild childhood disease for a far more serious illness that affects adults. According to a case study conducted in California, the rate of shingles has increased dramatically since a 1995 governmental recommendation that all children receive the chickenpox vaccine.

Looks like big pharma is in a win win situation...for themselves, anyway.

[honeybunch2k8]

Originally Posted by tammyswanson

Here is what this site says (and it quotes it from an issue of Mothering magazine in 2005):

New research suggests that the US government has unwittingly traded a typically mild childhood disease for a far more serious illness that affects adults. According to a case study conducted in California, the rate of shingles has increased dramatically since a 1995 governmental recommendation that all children receive the chickenpox vaccine.

Looks like big pharma is in a win win situation...for themselves, anyway.

I'm not surprised.

I mean seriously chicken pox??? Nobody except the most fearmongering can argue that's a life threatening disease. I definitely thing the gov't should stop endorsing cp vaccines b/c it just creates more problems. I also think that parents should think 2x about vaxing for a disease that most of them probably had so they know it's not usually serious and not go do things just b/c the Paul Offit & Co. say so. But hey what do I know???

I was just going to say that a risk factor for shingles is not having the intermittent immunity boosts by being exposed to chicken pox. Is that correct?

[talk de jour]

I had natural cp. It wasn't bad. I don't plan to get the varicella vax for future dc.

My grandma, whom I love and am VERY close to, had shingles a few years ago. It was TORTURE for her. If the shingles vax bears out to have any real effect, I WILL get it, because I NEVER want to go through what she did.

[orangewallflower]

The reason that shingles is on the rise with the CP vax is that being exposed to the wild virus acts as an immunity boost against shingles. Less wild virus means less exposure. The kids that get CP vaxed hopefully will also be protected against shingles, but research is not conclusive on this. I will definitely get the shingles vax when I am 50 unless the side affects (which will be better understood) are worse than the disease. My mom had it on her head and face last year- it was very scary, very painful, and she has nerve damage that is probably permanent.

[Tracy]

Originally Posted by orangewallflower

The reason that shingles is on the rise with the CP vax is that being exposed to the wild virus acts as an immunity boost against shingles. Less wild virus means less exposure. The kids that get CP vaxed hopefully will also be protected against shingles, but research is not conclusive on this. I will definitely get the shingles vax when I am 50 unless the side affects (which will be better understood) are worse than the disease. My mom had it on her head and face last year- it was very scary, very painful, and she has nerve damage that is probably permanent.

do you have a link on that connection? just curious, i remember reading a different take on the rise of shingles with the rise of the vax.

[orangewallflower]

Tracy,
I remember that from research I did when my mom was in the midst of her shingles. I will post if I can find the link. What is the connection that you have heard about?

[Deborah]

Apparently the pain from shingles can be mitigated by the application of undiluted apple cider vinegar.

[Tracy]

Originally Posted by Tracy

do you have a link on that connection? just curious, i remember reading a different take on the rise of shingles with the rise of the vax.

Something about the fact that the CP vax is not very effective it has generated the rise in shingles.

[Bluegoat]

Originally Posted by Tracy

Something about the fact that the CP vax is not very effective it has generated the rise in shingles.

I have also heard this, but I have to say it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, because most cases of shingles are in older people, and the CP vax has not been popular long enough for those kids to get older yet. The pp's explanation actually makes more sense to me.

I did ask my doctor if she had heard of people who had the vax getting shingles, and she said she had not seen anything in any of the literature. I'd be interested to see if anyone had links or references to any examples of this, rather than just showing that there is an increased amount of shingles in the population.

[orangewallflower]

It's just too soon unfortunately. Shingles is very rare in childhood, and usually doesn't appear until after 50. So what will happen with this generation of vaxed kids and shingles remains to be seen, and we won't know for decades. But because shingles is the self-same virus that a person had as CP, it falls to reason that if the CP vaccine is effective, those who received the vax will not get shingles.

[Bluegoat]

Originally Posted by orangewallflower

It's just too soon unfortunately. Shingles is very rare in childhood, and usually doesn't appear until after 50. So what will happen with this generation of vaxed kids and shingles remains to be seen, and we won't know for decades. But because shingles is the self-same virus that a person had as CP, it falls to reason that if the CP vaccine is effective, those who received the vax will not get shingles.

To me this would be the only real advantage to the CP vax, which is why I wish we had more info on it. But I guess it's impossible to know everything.

[WildKingdom]

People who get the CP vaccine can still get shingles. It has happened in both immune-competent and immune-compromised children. The shingles rash can actually be tested to find out if wild-type or vaccine-strain CP has caused it, and there have been cases of both. Here are some links:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...ubmed_RVDocSum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...ubmed_RVDocSum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...ubmed_RVDocSum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...ubmed_RVDocSum

Also- here is a link regarding the increase in zoster since introduction of the varicella vaccine:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1...ubmed_RVDocSum

[Shelsi]

Originally Posted by Gitti

Exactly!

And you don't get shingles upon the second exposure. Or the third. You get shingles when you are under stress or chemo or nutritionally depleted AND exposed to cp.

They don't know all the reasons someone gets shingles though. I got shingles when I was 7 mos prego with dd. I was eating healthier than I ever had been, I worked out daily, I was just over all very healthy, never sick, etc. There was no stress...everything in life was going along smoothly. Then I suddenly got an itchy rash on my neck that traveled along my shoulder and turned out to be shingles. WORST PAIN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. There's no describing the pain. It was so horrendous. All I could do was sit on the bed in a crouched position and just sort of rock slightly while sobbing. THey gave me vicodin but since I was pregnant I didn't want to take much so I would just take a quarter of one pill to take the edge off whenever dh wasn't home since I needed to be able to function to take care of my ds (whom I sat in front of the TV for days on end).

Originally Posted by Deborah

Apparently the pain from shingles can be mitigated by the application of undiluted apple cider vinegar.

That did help slightly...except definitely DILUTE it! Undiluted it burned like crazy and was super painful. Even diluted it burned but not as badly and after about a minute the itchy pain stopped. It really helped with the itchy pain type stuff but not the downright horrible nerve pain.

[Marnica]

They don't know all the reasons someone gets shingles though. I got shingles when I was 7 mos prego with dd. I was eating healthier than I ever had been, I worked out daily, I was just over all very healthy, never sick, etc. There was no stress...everything in life was going along smoothly.

Pregnancy in and of itself is VERY stressful on the body however!