New vaccine can relieve extreme discomfort of shingles
Reported November 20, 2008
The $100 Pat Rose shelled out recently for the shingles vaccine was well worth reducing her risk of getting the painful viral disease, the East Harwich woman says.
A friend in Maine got shingles this past summer and was in such pain she couldn’t bear to touch her own cheek, Rose says. “She was quite incapacitated for a while.”
Rose’s physician at Brewster Medical Associates suggested the 66-year-old get the shingles vaccine a couple of months ago.
The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta recommended this past spring that most Americans age 60 and older be vaccinated against shingles, a skin rash caused by the varicella zoster virus associated with chickenpox.
Rose did not have the necessary insurance, but the vaccine is covered by Medicare Part D.
Shingles is basically a reactivation of the chickenpox virus that lies dormant in the nerves. More common among people age 50 and older and people with weakened immune systems, the virus travels along nerve roots and causes a rash to break out on one side of the face or body.
People often experience pain, itching or tingling before the rash breaks out, and fever, headache, chills and an upset stomach frequently accompany the virus.
What’s worse, says the CDC, is that in one out of five cases people develop severe pain called post-herpetic neuralgia even after the rash clears up.
“It can last for years,” says Dr. Alan Sugar, head of infectious disease control for Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis. He says it’s difficult to treat inflamed and damaged nerves.
In rare instances, shingles can cause hearing and vision problems, pneumonia, brain inflammation or death.
The legendary painfulness of shingles was enough to motivate Rose to get the shingles vaccine. She had heard some people with shingles can’t even stand to have a blanket covering their skin.
“It can rear up its head in a lot of ugly ways,” she says.
The CDC says the number of shingles cases is growing as the population ages, with 1 million cases a year being reported.
The center recommends a dose of the vaccine Zostavax for almost all Americans 60 and over. The federal health agency says the vaccine, licensed two years ago, has been shown to prevent shingles in about half of people in that age group.
But not every doctor’s office or pharmacy stocks the vaccine, which is live and must be refrigerated.
Rose’s route to vaccination was circuitous. She says her doctor gave her a number to call, and the folks at the other end sent her prescription to a Stop & Shop pharmacy.
The pharmacist called Rose when her vaccine arrived and told her it would keep under refrigeration for up to a year.
Rose picked it up after two weeks and drove straight to Brewster Medical Associates, where a nurse injected her with the shingles vaccine.
“I”m very, very thankful I got it, especially after talking to my friend,” says Rose, who works in the office at Harwich High School.
People who shouldn’t get the vaccine, according to the CDC, include individuals who have untreated tuberculosis; a weakened immune system because of HIV/AIDS, cancer treatment or steroid treatment; as well as those who have ever had a life-threatening reaction to gelatin or the antibiotic neomycin.
“It’s very rare to get side effects” from the shingles vaccine, Sugar says.
Doctors say the impact of shingles can be lessened by treating an outbreak within 72 hours with an antiviral antibiotic.
People with shingles can spread the chickenpox virus to people who have never had chickenpox through contact with the clear fluid that forms inside the shingles blisters.
Keeping the blisters covered and frequent hand-washing minimize the threat of contagion, Sugar says.
