If you’ve been working hard and under stress you’ll def want to avoid this.
I t started with a strain across my back. I had a warm bath and rubbed oil over my shoulder. The next day I could see a rash. I thought nothing of it, until a day later it had developed like a global map across my torso. I can only liken it to having your skin scraped off from a fall of a bike with no protective clothing and that raw skin is pulsating. It’s highly sensitive to any touch, and kept me awake at all hours.
The doctor was unequivocal. You have shingles.
What’s that, I asked, baffled.
I’m fairly fit; do yoga and body pump every week and eat healthily. I’ve got used to no salt in my food and sugar and I hardly, if any drink — not out of any reason that I don’t like the taste. And Yes I’m a bore. Live a little dangerously. C’mon. I can’t remember the last time I was off sick from my job in 20 years.
You have shingles, he repeated.
When I talk to people. friends or family, I’ve discovered the responses broadly fall into two camps.
№1 Empathy for a sickness which often evokes the, ‘that’s Chicken pox, isn’t it?’
№2 Horror and empathy for those who’ve had it, or know someone that has.
Shingle is caused by the chicken pox virus that’s in you if you’ve ever had chicken pox, but physical symptoms are far from chicken pox.
The blisters that develop and pain derive from your nerve endings. If you get shingles anywhere near the face, it can cause blindness. Anti viral drugs taken regularly for the first week and pain killers help arrest shingles’ spread and the pain. But, and I was fortunate. You’ve got a three day window when the symptoms develop for a ‘speedy’ effective treatment, I was told. I went to my doctor just because I was curious insisting it was the oil, on day 2.
Shingles though is the physical aftermath of something else and there’s a consensus around stress. Not stress we all get that’s resolvable, but continuous stress that leads to burnout — the type that sends your BP sky high.
The type where a company’s performance might depend on continuous trouble shooting with limited resources. The type where you go to bed with the problem, and wake with it and find there are more and you’re exhausted.
I sensed mine. My crown was pulsing, and my arms felt like they were in a vice and my stomach knotted up. At night my mind was racing. I could be on my Mac from 7 a.m. in the morning until 1 a.m problem solving.
Some people I’ve met got shingles after COVID. One study: “Herpes zoster after COVID vaccination” shows a relationship between shingles and COVID-19 vaccine specifically the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA vaccine.
The authors say
“Our case report describes two adults developing herpes zoster after vaccination with tozinameran (the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 mRNA vaccine). A possible cause for this reaction is a transient lymphocytopenia that occurs after the vaccination — similar to that in COVID-19 disease”.
And go on to express more research needs to be done.
Shingles emerges when stress impacts the immune system which becomes compromised. The problem is not knowing the limits of your own stress, where if you’re unlucky and thirty upwards, you run the risk of developing shingles, or otherwise the people you work with not understanding. That’s the million dollar question.
You’ve seen the clip of Will Smith talking about his mother’s concern for him wanting to be a rapper. Smith assesses this as his mother not wanting to be a rapper. Same thing with stress. It’s a perception and real, and just because your co-worker can manage, doesn’t mean you can.
I’ve met gym instructors, and doctors who’ve had shingles, and as for burnout, this week’s Sunday Time article on Adriene Mishler the 37-year-old who rose to prominence during lockdown with her Yoga videos is instructive. Mishler talks about her burnout in the article.
Healing
It can take anything from 4 weeks to three months to come good. The fatigue from the virus is little spoken about. And then there’s the original underlying symptom, stress.
Advice I’ve picked up, include introducing hard stops between work and home; reading work emails in the evening can raise cortisol levels and reduce quality sleep. Distancing one’s self from the source of stress. Consulting with your HR or Occupational Health.
Meditating in the morning and taking “happy walk” breaks. Breathing exercises — by deep breathing you trick the body’s flight syndrome to de-escalating hormone release. Do things that make you happy.
With shingles, some people are unlucky because the symptoms of pain from the nerves never subside. From health practitioners that and the fatigue can take a while. I get a twinge — a bit like someone prodding me with an umbrella and have been advised to use St John’s Wort oil.
So what else to do? Don’t ignore a rash. Develop #stress-alleviating methods. Take ‘happy walks’. Talk to people/ friends about what’s on your mind. Do something not stress related e.g. writing when you have it. Above all be kind to yourself. You have one life!
This a good blog to read if you’re under stress
