My Battle against Shingles (Part 1)

Hi world! It’s me again. Let’s talk about me fighting against shingles for the past month.

I think I started to have shingles on the first few days of the 2022 new year. However, I never paid any attention to or researched it, since I thought it was just a simple rash, and applying some itchy cream would make it go away. Of course, I was wrong, the rash became very invisible and I felt itchy and painful a couple days later, and I had to tell my parents about my condition.

The crazy thing is, right when I describe the rash area to my parents, they knew immediately that it was shingles (“Zona” in Vietnamese). Why? Because my dad was experiencing the same exact thing and he had been in extreme pain for the past few weeks due to this “small” rash! He lost his appetite and had trouble moving between places; sometimes he even had to stay in bed to work.

I really freaked out thinking about my future suffering from shingles! Like will I be able to take care of myself if I can barely walk? How do I sleep at night? What medicine should I take? Will my condition ever be completely treated? I clearly don’t have any answers to that, so the best I could do at that time was do my research online and use all the resources available to me.

So, I went through all the websites that contain info about singles and all the blogposts about people having shingles. I concluded that the earlier I get treated with antiviral medicine, the better are my chances of recovery; most people get shingles at their old ages, and having a relaxed mind is most important. Then, I called Student Health Center to seek help while my parents were consulting their doctors for me. In addition, I used the free online doctor service provided by my insurance First Student, called Telehealth Medicine. This, turned out, was my best move because the doctor confirmed that it was really shingles and sent my prescription to CVS, so I can pick it up later.

The only con was that I didn’t know the Pharmacy in CVS Bryn Mawr was already closed at 8pm that night and I had to wait until the day after. I was so worried that a little delay would drastically affect my condition that I almost cried. But again, there was nothing I could do and my lesson learned for the day is make sure the doctor send my prescription to a 24hr pharmacy instead.

That night, shingles bothered my sleep and for the first time, I experience nerve pain besides rash pain… At least I knew my parents were worried about my condition too, and I would get my medicine as ASAP the next morning.