I had first ever shingles which came out on 8/10. I had sudden back pain then the rash on chest. Didn't start aciclovir until 13/10. I was given 7 days but realistically managed 4 tablets a day (not 5) for 7 days. I normally take a low dose immune supressant.

The rash has healed over (but skin still a little red). Main thing is how rough I feel. My liver has raised ALT (122) and have low phosphate. My eyes feel hollow and feel like I have been rolled by a rolling pin. I find sleep uncomfortable. Body tired but cannot sleep.

Is ir normal and how to feel better?

Make sure you get the Shingrix vaccine from the pharmacy and NOT from the Dr's Office if you are on a Medicare Supplemental plan because it's not covered. Plan D will pay for it, but only if you get it from a pharmacy. Learned the hard way $269.

Anyone here had shingles on their neck? I’m so scared. I had a sore throat 4 1/2 days ago and felt run down. On Friday afternoon 10/23 I felt my neck on the right side and felt bumps thinking it was acne then looked in the mirror and freaked out. It itches mostly but gets a tingly burning sensation too at times. It feels if I press on it or above or below it like my lymph nodes are swollen. I lost my voice almost completely on 10/23 and had flu like symptoms and still have a sore throat, dry cough, with no voice today. Flu like symptoms were a bit better today but still feel like crap and have been having headaches. So far it’s just been itchy with a little tingly burning sensation here and there.
(Photos in order of progression)

I went to urgent care 10/24 they tested for Covid and strep both negative (my throat was painful and so red with bumps) and she looked at my neck and said you might be right I think you have shingles. She prescribed Valtrex and I picked it up that night. (I’ve now taken 7 doses, 3 times daily)

Did anyone else’s look like this— people say it doesn’t look like typical shingles so I’m not sure. Now it looks like the skin below it is discolored? I don’t believe I have any new spots except it might have crept up into my hair line on my neck a few tiny spots but hard to tell. I did find one bump on my back last night but I have no clue if it’s related. I have bad health anxiety along with diagnosed POTS, hEDS, and now suspected MCAS.

Any advice with how I handle the next week(s) would be much appreciated.

I'm a 32 yo male who was recently diagnosed with suspected shingles through telehealth. About 8 days ago, I started experiencing itching around my right shoulder blade, followed by roughly 5 days of mild, annoying soreness that felt almost like a pulled muscle or bruised skin.

About 1–2 days ago, I noticed a small cluster of red, raised bumps on my upper right back and a couple of separate lone dots beneath my right breast, all on the same side. So far, the pain has been surprisingly mild. When I'm sitting or lying still, I feel virtually nothing, maybe a little warmth. Certain movements or clothing rubbing against the area can cause soreness around 5/10, but it disappears almost immediately when I stop moving. I haven't experienced the constant burning, stabbing, or shooting nerve pain that many people describe. I started valacyclovir 1000 mg three times daily within about 24 hours of noticing the rash. I'm wondering if anyone else had a similar progression, especially several days of mild soreness before the rash appeared and little to no pain at rest. Did your case stay mild, or did the pain become significantly worse after the blisters appeared? That's what I'm worried about and I hope I can get through this with not too much hell.

Ok so he’s had a shingles outbreak for almost 4 weeks- one round of acyclovir, and now gabapentin (not good stuff) for the nerve pain. The outbreak is not going away- if anyone has any suggestions for other anti vitals or any supplements that would help or anything at all please share your experience or anything please and thank you. The doctors aren’t being much help

I’m 25F. Last Thursday I felt exhausted, that evening I noticed a small red mark on my neck, during the night it woke me up and in the morning there was tiny white dots. I went to the pharmacy and they gave me a cream but on the Saturday it was getting worse. I went to the dr and he said it was shingled and took a swab. Although he was using chat gpt and was reluctant to give me a medical cert to be off work (I work in compliance, in restaurant, nail salons etc). He said he would ring me on Monday which he did and gave me a cert for two days. He also prescribed antiviral medication. Yesterday I had hot and cold sweats. Today the area is crusting over but my lower back is in shocking pain. Has anyone had a similar experience?

Hi Everyone- I came down with shingles around my right ear, lower face, neck, chest, and upper back 3 weeks ago. Luckily, my wife suggested the rash might be shingles on the second day so I was on valtrex within 48 h of noticing the rash.

I’ve also been on prednisone, biologics (Taltz right now), methotrexate, imuran, etc. since 2012 for the autoimmune disease Nuero Behçet’s. Along with the typical symptoms, I’ve had several cases of autoimmune meningitis. Probably the most important part of this aside is that I’ve been on prednisone non-stop since 2012.

Unfortunately, even though I started the valtrex early on a Monday, by Friday it was fairly obvious that it was also infecting my central nervous system. I was hospitalized that day. From there, I got very sick with the classic terrible headache, eye pain, stiff neck, and general very sick feeling. They put me on a IV acyclovir for the first 3 days and then doubled the dose because I still wasn’t responding. My left leg ent numb, my facial muscles were very weak and shaky, and the headache got the point I was in tears despite the pain meds.

Luckily, by Tuesday afternoon, I began to feel better, the headache mostly went away and I was able to get up and walk around normally. On Wednesday I was discharged with a script for valtrex.

My wife and I were googling the standard treatment for VZV (shingles) meningitis and everything online said a 2 week treatment of IV drugs was standard, but they felt like the oral drugs would be ok. That was a week and half ago. Since then I’ve been gradually improving, though I’ve had serious insomnia so it’s been tough. I went back to work full time remotely the day I got out and have planned on returning to work tomorrow.

That is until today when I couldn’t get out of bed because I was so weak. The rash seems more irritated and painful, and now I’m getting pangs of the headache again that had been gone for about a week.

This is my first time with shingles. I don’t know how to navigate recovery. I do pay into short term disability which pays 60% of my check if I was to take medical leave, but I’ve never done anything like that even with all the Behçet’s disease problems.

Is it appropriate to take some time off? What have you guys done? What are the chances of it flaring back up with my history of meningitis and somewhat diminished immune system? I was determined to go back to work, but honestly my brain is still slow with lots of aphasia and trouble with recall. I guess, what should I be expecting over the next few months? Thanks in advance if anyone can help with some advice!

CSF White Count-344
CSF Glucose- 77
CSF protein- 97
CSF Appearance- Cloudy
CSF lymphocytes %- 92
CSF neutrophils %- 8 mi
CSF Positive for VZV

Curious if anyone has been through something similar.

About four months ago the left side of my neck started feeling like a bad sunburn. It was sore and sensitive to touch, but no rash ever showed up. My doctor suspected shingles without the rash and put me on Valtrex, which helped.

The sunburn feeling hung around for a couple of months before it mostly faded. For the last month or two I've had nothing more than a passing twinge or a weird sensation here and there, and I honestly thought I was over the hump.

The past few days it's come back in that same spot. It's a constant, low-grade ache, plus a hard-to-describe sensitivity where it feels like something is touching or rubbing the skin when nothing is there.

For anyone who's had shingles without the rash, or lingering nerve pain afterward, how long did it take to fully go away? Did anything help with it?

Thursday morning I got some tingles on my eyelid. I was outside for a walk and thought it may be allergies. By Thursday evening, a part of my upper eyelid was swollen and I had a little swollen part to the left of my eye. What tipped me off that something more than allergies was wrong was my lymph nodes near my ear and my jaw were super tender and inflamed. Went to bed, Friday the eyelid was still a bit swollen. Saturday, I decided to go to urgent care and the doc suspected shingles. I was FLOORED. I actually didn’t believe him and asked if they could test. He did a blood test which I later learned isn’t really a way to know. I went to a second urgent care later in the day because I started to spiral and she said they couldn’t rule out shingles and to just take the anti virals. I took my first pill last night and this morning woke up and the spot now is blistering. No new spots (yet?) and the pain feels a little stingy and goes in and out but isn’t terrible.

TLDR:
New mom, new shingles (first time), maybe mild or maybe just the beginning? Already taking Valtrex.

Questions: Will it for sure continue to spread? Or could this one little patch be it?
Will it get more painful?
Do the blisters always pop eventually? And if it does… what do you do?
I’m wearing sunglasses near my daughter and washing my hands like crazy. I’ve also notified her pediatrician.
When do you know you’ve turned a corner?

Thank you community 🙏

So, I got shingles again, two years after my first time. This time, it’s even worse than before. My entire chest, armpit, and back are affected. It doesn’t hurt, but it itches so badly that I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t start aciclovir because more than 72 hours had passed. Now I have so many large blisters, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know why these things always happen to me.

First 3 pics are first outbreaks. Others are what I continue to get in the same area.
I've posted here before and deleted because...face pics. I've basically had ongoing shingles since 10 days post my most recent COVID booster (2/2026).

I did 3 rounds 3 g daily Valacyclovir x 10 days. Each time I stopped tiny pinpoint blisters and crippling pain would return. Eventually they put me on suppressive 1 g/daily which maybe helped a little (outbreaks of tiny blisters, horrible pain every 1-2 weeks). Cleared by opthamology 4x but should go back.

Eventually after seeing a new ID we decided I could just stop valacyclovir bc side effects, it didn't seem to be helping (great solution!), and I didn't have a positive PCR so maybe try for that when/if I get a new outbreak/anti virals are out of my system.

I've been off for about 1.5 months now and continue to get tiny blisters. Basically constantly. They may be spreading to V2. Pain is as bad as ever and seems to have spread to thoracic area (had shingles here at 33) and down my right neck as well somehow. PMI: 40 yo f, diagnosed with POTS, hypermobility spectrum, probably MCAS but not diagnosed. IgA deficient.

Please lmk if you've experienced anything like this, especially in terms of recurrence, "spreading" pain, trigeminal shingles without eye involvement.

Does anyone know of any over-the-counter treatments that can help relieve the pain from SHINGLES (herpes zoster)? 😭💔

I'm in so much pain, and I'm exhausted from trying to find something that will help. Everything I search keeps bringing up chickenpox, but I'm looking for relief specifically for shingles. The burning pain is unbearable, and I desperately need some relief.

If you've had shingles or know of anything OTC that helped with the pain, please share what worked for you. I'm willing to try anything safe that might help. Thank you. 🙏

I was put on Caltrex on day 1 of the rash appearing but it’s day 5 and it’s still spreading. I take it 3 times a day. Is this common?

Hi everyone,
Did anyone get the vaccine after having shingles? I so don’t want to go through this!

I am only 16 and had shingles develope on the 14th. had the doctor yesterday and she's said i definitely have shingles, I've been taking antivirals and putting a cream on it because its in my arm pit. the blisters have come and gone and now my skin has peeled off the top of the patches. its not a very large affected area luckily.

Got shingles late Sept with what started as horrible back pain, rash early Oct didn’t know what it was until rash grew, started antivirals.
I’m about 1- 2 weeks out from the scabs on my rash finally falling off and still have nerve pain and numbness in some areas.

I did an upper body workout Tuesday and some stairs and omg the next day nerve pain was intense.
I’m so sad because I love working out and am left thinking i won’t be able to until this nerve pain is gone, or wondering if it’ll ever get better.

Has anyone worked out with nerve pain or is it recommended to not? I keep getting mixed feedback from my pcp/physical therapist vs what I’ve read.
Looking for your experiences here.

Hello!

I am a 39M, I started getting a real bad itch and redness on my head with blisters. I went to the doc and found i had caught a very early case of shingles. I am on the Valtrex horse pill 3 times a day. But the nerve pain is absolutely insane. I am on a regimen of Tylenol and ibuprofen and was prescribed lidocaine. Only thing is its an ointment and the spots are basically under my hair. My wife did a good job of trying to get it on my scalp however its causing my hair to grease. Is there anything else that can be done? I do wear a cpap at night and the damn straps go right over the spot...

They really need to lower the shingles vaccine age... lol

Thanks for the help!

Three weeks into my shingles journey! At this moment I want to use a Brillo pad to the area. I am 60 years old and I had only about 10 chickenpox when I was little. I have had the shingles vaccines already. I have long Covid so my immune system is not what it used to be. I had a cold sore break out in a nostril (yes, the nostril I don’t get the lip ones) I started feeling very tired and had a headache about 1 month ago. I started feeling an itch on my arm and then a little rash started. Five days later I went to Urgent Care to see what I had because I didn’t feel well. Shingles, given the antiviral medication. I have finished that and went to my primary who saw me in the parking lot. They share a building with pediatrics. She put me on Gabapentin. I just hope this goes away soon. The pain, burn, itch and disrupted sleep are tasking.

Has anyone had anything like this? I had shingles in February 2024. And on Monday (today is Friday), I had surgery to take out one of my ovaries. I have five incisions across my stomach and the only one that’s affecting my nerves is the far right one, which is where one of my shingles breakouts was. I don’t think that I’m having a new shingles outbreak or anything, but my nerves feel extremely sensitive. Any ideas what I can do to calm down the nerves on that incision? If I place my palm over the area and just leave it there it calms it down, but I can’t do that all day long.

Has anyone had shingles without the classic big rash because they were on antivirals already?

39 f. Been on 500mg valtrax daily for cold sores for YEARS. Never had chicken pox but have had 3 vaccines.

I’m two weeks into excruciating pain, redness and swelling behind my ear radiating to scalp. Saw my doctor who said “absolutely sounds like you are describing shingles to a T but you don’t have a big rash so it can’t be”.

I do have a hand full of red spots that look like pimples/angry hair follicles.

I want to cry it hurts so bad. I’m exhausted and nauseous but also feel like a wuss because “it’s not even a rash”.

Like when you have a cold or the flu or congestion, does your old shingles area feel more tender or achy?

I'm not sure if it's just because it was my facial nerve (and cheek and eye) and it's just being sensitive, or if it's like the shingles trying to happen again but failing, but it seems to happen whenever I get sick.

I haven't had it recurr again since my doctor put me on the meds daily but whenever I feel the nerves there light up again it makes me think it's trying to come out again.

37f, I have myasthenia gravis and the treatments/medications for this have left me severely immunocompromised so I'm prone to getting sick.

About one week ago I started to feel under the weather, by the weekend I noticed some back pain on my left side around the rib area that suddenly went to like 8/10 pain with a constant throbbing stabbing feeling when walking. On Monday after my weekly plasma infusion at the hospital I down the hallway to the ER and was told it was sciatica or a disc issue and given a referral for a spine doctor and some valium. On Tuesday I could shuffle around the house a little but by Wednesday the back pain got worse to the point where I couldn't stand at all without a LOT of pain. Also on wednesday my mom noticed a rash forming on my back.

This morning the plan was to get driven back to the hospital where I'm treated for my Myasthenia in case the pain was related to that but I stood up from the couch, took two steps and collapsed in pain onto the coffee table. I tried so hard to sit up straight but couldn't. The pain was too much. My sister helped me get back onto the couch and called 911. The EMS strapped me to a chair and brought me to the ambulance and the pain i experienced just being jostled in movement was 10/10, I couldn't breathe at all. Between the ride there and in the triage room I have been given muscular fentanyl, then iv toradol, roboxin pills, a really giant blue pill (anti viral?), gabapentin and oxycodone. Literally nothing is touching the back pain. About 4 times I have tried to stand up either with the doctor helping me or with the PT guys trying to get me to use a walker and each time the moment I sit up and put both feet on the floor and put my weight on my legs I get an excruciating stabbing feeling in my spine that makes me go back into the bed and cry for like 20 mins until the spasms calm down. Now the rash area feels like it is burning a lot. CT scan doesn't show anything!

So I was wondering, can shingles cause such a deep devastating spinal like nerve pain that makes it impossible to walk or even sit up? Their concern is that I can't make it up the stairs to my home or be able to get to the bathroom my own so I'm being admitted for more meds and observation and possibly PT but I'm so scared, even at my worst with the myasthenia I could walk with assistance but this pain is horrific, laying in bed I'm in pain and every time I try to stand I get 10/10 pain despite how many painkillers they've given me.

Hello! I've had shingles for like 4 times now since 2019 and I'm not eligible for the vaccine yet. I was wondering what people's experiences are like with nerve pain that comes back every once in a while. I notice that when my immune system is particularly weak, sometimes I'll get a very subtle pain from the feet shooting upwards. Does anyone else have recurring nerve pain after they've had shingles? How often do you get it, how painful, and any patterns you've noticed?

I put from gauze and tape over it last night and tape pulled the scab. I put some Aquaphor on it. Am I going to scar? I was put on antiviral the first the rash came.