Since part of the rash was below my pant line, my doctor had to get the nurse to come and look at it too. This I assume is so when I sue him for sexual harrassment for asking me to pull down my pants, the nurse can say "duh, what's sexy about a rash?" All very well and good, but it means the whole office gets to peek at my underwear.
Anyway, he takes one look at my bumpies and prenounces them "shingles". Sort of like chicken pox for old people. Doc also says I shouldn't hang out with pregnant people, and since Today's Parent is Pregnancyland, I can't really go to my internship this week. Apparantly, should the evil shingles go untreated I could get pain and stuff later on. Then he wrote me a prescription: $127! The shingles are causing me pain, pain in the wallet.
The ultra-expensive medicine apparently doubles as a fetus killer, so I had to pee in a cup to make sure I wasn't pregnant. The same nurse who checked out my pretty blue undies also got to examine my urine! Wasn't it just her lucky day?
Shingles info (some according to Doc, some according to the instructions pack of my meds, most according to my friend the internet):
- shingles is from the same virus as chicken pox. You can't "catch" shingles. It's my understanding that the virus was dormant in my nerves or some such, from when I had a very mild case of chicken pox in grade 2.
- Only 20% of people who have had chicken pox get shingles (lucky me).
- Most people who get shingles are over 65 (I'm only 39 years off).
- The virus gets into one group of nerves. (in my case my hip). So the bumpies won't appear on my other hip, on my face, or anywhere else that's not along that nerve.
- It's possible that I could actually give chicken pox to someone who hasn't had it.
shingles, chicken pox
1 comment:
Get better soon Jen!
We'll drink a coconut drink in your hounour!
Post a Comment