News

When I was a kid the chicken pox vaccine was still pretty new. I remember hearing parents talking about it, and remember a few of them saying that it was only X% effective (don't remember what that percentage was off the top of my head)

At the time, it seemed like every other children's show had a chicken pox episode with one or more of the characters getting chicken pox, their parents talking about having a chicken pox party to get their kids infected, etc. it kind of seemed like it was almost inevitable that either I'd get chicken pox at some point or a lot of kids I knew would.

But I, and most of the kids I went to school with, did end up getting the vaccine, and very few kids in my school ever ended up with chickenpox. I can probably just about count the number of cases on my fingers in a school with hundreds of kids.

So vaccines work.

Funny story though, at one point in my childhood I got sick and ended up getting a prescription for amoxicillin. I started breaking out in sort of a rash/hives, and for a while they thought it might be chicken pox.

Turns out I'm actually just allergic to amoxicillin.

And then to make things even weirder, my sister gets a similar reaction from the azithromycin I usually got instead.

seems its not even correlation isnt equal causation. shingles can be dangerous if it causes meningitis, or gastrointestinal activation. when i had shingles at 20, although the blisters(now permanent scrs with nerve damage) apparently also traveled to the spine which cause it to stiffin up, it lasted only a week. dint have other meningitis symptoms though. its much more likely if your 50+ though.

I always thought there was a convenience thing too. You knew all your children were going to catch it, so for you want to deal with it just once, or once per kid?

had at 20, although it was only shocks and pain a small rash. it did have permanent damage though, but its not severe like a huge rash. numb right where the scars are, and hypersensitive right outside the rash(this was more than 10years ago), and spinal stiffness. i did get phn for a couple years though. (the nerve damage is permanent though,outside of the phn)

yes it hasnt been approved for anyone under 50+, hence not tested for . people who get it under 50, you wouldnt know the benefits of it if you get shingles later on. i like how the sub for shingles, people are reporting shingles frequently, i would probably say they are having some other reaction or hsv1 rather than multiple infections. thier symptoms just dont follow those of shingles.(that sub has quite alot of misinformation about shingles)

also insurance doesnt cover it, because it hasnt been tested for <50yos, so its quite expensive, besides the resistance from the insurance, pharmacies and doctors might refuse it too for the same reasons.

most likely its shingles induced meningitis or encephalitis that would cause dementia like symptoms.

shingles is much more severe the older you are, or immunocompromised. eventhough my shingles rash was quite small, because of the severe stress it seems to cause more damage than normal, it reached my spine, plus caused stiffness and backpain. and the scars, and nerve damage.(it went through the whole blistering and bursting stage, since i dint get to a doctor in time.

Thanks for sharing. My dad has shingles right now and I don't think he's vaccinated. I'll tell him to ask a doctor about it!

Chicken pox was always widely available.