Friday morning I woke up with a weird rash on the inside of my left elbow. It looked like poison ivy but didn't itch. (And I hadn't been around poison ivy for almost a year.) It was tender to the touch but otherwise wasn't causing problems.
Sunday, I noticed the skin was very hot around it, and there was a pink patch forming all around the rash.
Monday, it was extremely tender; it touched my clothes when I walked. I decided it was time to call the doctor; I thought it might be a skin fungus from the gym equipment.
I went to the doctor yesterday and he diagnosed me with shingles. He said it is caused by the same virus as chicken pox. After a person breaks out with chicken pox, the virus lies dormant in the body until the person is under intense stress, or until their immune system is compromised. Then it resurfaces as a rash, but not lots of little bumps all over the body. It doesn't resemble chicken pox hardly at all. Instead of itching, it hurts, and not just the casual "hurt". The virus attacks nerves, and sends shooting pains through the rash. My particular rash is causing shooting pains in my left arm and in my neck. It doesn't necessarily have to touch anything to have the shooting pains. I don't even have to be moving for it to hurt.
I was reading about symptoms leading up to a shingles outbreak, and that helped to explain the fever I had the latter part of last week (and still have even though I'm on meds), and the headaches that I had all last week.
Granted, I was under a lot of stress. I started working part time last week, but when I say part time I really mean full time hourly. And I'm still studying for exams. So of course I'm worried about money. The first thing the doctor asked me after checking out the rash was if I was stressed.
The good news is it's only contagious if people in contact with me have never had chicken pox. If they have had chicken pox, nothing will happen to them. But if they haven't had chicken pox, they'll get them from my shingles virus. Oh, and re-occurrences of shingles are rare. That's also nice to know.
Here's to hoping I don't have any of the adverse side effects of the medicines. They are all pretty scary.
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