Let me tell you about my disease.
Nov. 13th, 2012 01:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewduckerOn Thursday evening I had an itchy left shoulder-blade, and I asked Julie to scratch it, which was quite nice.
On Friday morning I woke up with a very tender left shoulder-blade, and a sore left armpit. Which was much less nice.
Julie worried that she'd had something on her hands, I worried that I had done something nasty to it. But I figured if I left it for a day or so it would go away.
When, come Monday afternoon it was _still_ sore, showing no signs of getting better, and suspiciously, there was no rash or bruising, I started to worry a lot. The whole area felt like it was bruised just under the skin, but with no outward signs I was beginning to think that the real problem was deeper, and who knew what House-esque nastiness it could be?
So this morning at 8am I booked an emergency appointment with my doctor, got one for 10:40, and wandered along to be told I'd done exactly the right thing by coming in. Because I have Shingles. Which is what happens when latent chickenpox viruses hide in the nerve cells in your spine and then come out to play decades later. They work their way up the nerve endings to the skin and then explode into blisters, which are then contagious. In my case they haven't reached the surface yet (and they seem to be working their way up the nerve cluster associated with the T2 dermatome, and now that I've been prescribed Aciclovir they hopefully won't.
I'm not contagious (as it hasn't reached the surface) and both my GP and Occupational Health have told me that as the blisters would be underneath clothes I shouldn't worry about it anyway. So unless it becomes too painful for me to concentrate, or knocks me out in some other way, I get to carry on with life as usual.
On Friday morning I woke up with a very tender left shoulder-blade, and a sore left armpit. Which was much less nice.
Julie worried that she'd had something on her hands, I worried that I had done something nasty to it. But I figured if I left it for a day or so it would go away.
When, come Monday afternoon it was _still_ sore, showing no signs of getting better, and suspiciously, there was no rash or bruising, I started to worry a lot. The whole area felt like it was bruised just under the skin, but with no outward signs I was beginning to think that the real problem was deeper, and who knew what House-esque nastiness it could be?
So this morning at 8am I booked an emergency appointment with my doctor, got one for 10:40, and wandered along to be told I'd done exactly the right thing by coming in. Because I have Shingles. Which is what happens when latent chickenpox viruses hide in the nerve cells in your spine and then come out to play decades later. They work their way up the nerve endings to the skin and then explode into blisters, which are then contagious. In my case they haven't reached the surface yet (and they seem to be working their way up the nerve cluster associated with the T2 dermatome, and now that I've been prescribed Aciclovir they hopefully won't.
I'm not contagious (as it hasn't reached the surface) and both my GP and Occupational Health have told me that as the blisters would be underneath clothes I shouldn't worry about it anyway. So unless it becomes too painful for me to concentrate, or knocks me out in some other way, I get to carry on with life as usual.
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