I went camping this weekend. Well first I worked at an orthopedic doctor's office filling in and then I spent the rest of the day prepping to go camping and then finally got to go camping in the rain. It sounds like I'm complaining but it really was fun. I enjoyed the trip but I didn't get a lot of sleep and came home pretty darn exhausted. I found a lovely arachnid on my ankle (a tick) and pulled it off. Later that night I stopped by one of my best friend's homes and had her check my side while I was there. It was super itchy. I thought maybe I had some more tick bites near my bra band. She said she didn't see anything except the redness from where I had been scratching earlier. It was really weird.
I really didn't think much of the itchy spots. I had had imaginary bugs crawling on me all weekend. You know, its that feeling you get when someone finds a bug on them or on you and you continue to feel a bug on you in various fake places until you have determined that you are just going psycho. Yeah, since I had dealt with that all weekend I just figured that I had mosquito bites or something. I started feeling worse on Tuesday waking up in a full blown (what I thought was a) fibro flare from pushing too hard on the weekend. Camping, unfortunately, is a lot of work. I was sore all over, very stiff, and had a wretched headache. I didn't think much of it until Wednesday. It physically hurt to touch the right side where my "mosquito/tick bites?" were. That was new.
Begrudgingly I decided to go to the doctor. I knew something was up by the mysterious, out of the ordinary symptom on my side. I thought maybe it was a dermatitis or tick fever or something that I really had no clue about but figured it would be better to be safe than sorry. My doctor was out but I saw a well versed nurse practitioner. I told her my symptoms and showed her my bites and she instantly said, "Those aren't bites, that's shingles!" "SHINGLES!" Seriously, what the heck! That's the thing that old people get that is super painful and they have a shot for so that they don't get it, right?! Well apparently shingles knows no age requirement and skipped the part that there is no shot for people under the age of 50 to prevent them from getting it.
The ANP asked me, "Have you been under a large amount of stress lately?" Hmmm...let's see...no more than normal was my answer. And that's the truth. I really don't feel like I have been. Granted I was a bit more stressed getting ready for the camping trip and such but not to the point that I thought it would give me a freaking repressed case of the chicken pox go and attach the right side of my body. So now I'm on Valtrex (yes that is the drug famously used to treat Herpes outbreaks for various male/female genital regions...fun stuff, right?) for the Herpes outbreak on my side and Neurotin since Lyrica makes me freakishly dizzy. So far no weird side effects and, to be completely honest, no major pain different than normal.
I feel like I'm in a flare. I have lived with flares for a long time. I think that the biggest eye opener was the fact that I had no idea that I had shingles. Shingles is supposed to be horrifyingly painful. I have barely noticed them. Everyone that I know that has had a lovely outbreak talked about the gross amount of pain that they were in. I mean they would speak of the AGONIZING pain that shingles caused and how they felt they couldn't get out of bed. The sad part is that when the diagnosis came, I was like, shouldn't this hurt more if it's shingles. I mean the only thing that I noticed is that I could feel my shirt touching the area and it caused a slight burning sensation. Other than that and the itching, it was really no different than everyday life.
Does anyone else see the sadness in this? I mean I walk around on a daily basis feeling like I have shingles without the itchies and the burning and this is suppose to be ok? You know what...it is! This experience showed me two great things: 1) I have a freaking ridiculous pain tolerance when I thought I had a pretty wimpy one. and 2) When I take pain meds and feel great, that is how I should be feeling as a normal human being and so it makes sense when I can tackle more when I actually take them. It also showed me how much we can really do when we push ourselves to go. Sure, I feel like crap, but I haven't let it stop me or throw me into a bedridden type state. It has actually pushed me and showed me how much I really am able to do even though I am "sick".
Push yourself a little bit Fibro people and I bet that you, too, will be surprised at what you can accomplish. Then go and take a nap, cause you earned it! God bless!!!
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