SInce last Monday I’ve had shingles, which is a disease usually associated with the elderly. Shingles is a disease you can only get if you’ve had chicken pox in the past: the virus remains dormant in your body until your immune system is in a weakened state, at which point it reasserts itself as shingles.
The received wisdom is that “stress” is the most likely thing to cause weakening of your immune system. I don’t know that I can believe that is the cause of my shingles as I haven’t been feeling overly stressed recently: certainly not compared to how stressed I was at this point in the last release of my product at work – the project management guys have definitely improved things.
On the other hand, I’d rather be able to blame stress than worry about the other common causes of immune-system weakness. I eat a balanced diet, and usually get my 5-a-day. An unbiased survey is unlikely to conclude I’m objectively fit, but I am certainly fitter now than I have been at any other time in the last decade. I don’t get drunk regularly (in fact the last time was Sally’s housewarming party 3 houses ago). I sleep 7-8 hours a night. My blood pressure is 115 over 71, rest pulse rate 75bpm, both smack in the middle of normal. So I’m in pretty-good nick overall.
To add to my concerns, this is the second time I’ve had shingles. The first time I was at secondary school, which I wasn’t enjoying as I was being bullied, so I can happily chalk that one down to stress I suppose. But it would be nice to know the cause this time. I suspect that it might be genetic: my sister also had shingles as a teenager (about the same age as I had it); I suppose I should warn her to keep an eye out in about 18 months’ time.
One significant difference this time is that drugs to combat the shingles virus have been developed since I last had it. They seem to work quite well against some symptoms, the rash is quite ignorable this time around, but not so well against the general malaise you get while your body is fighting something off. I suppose, now I think about it, that my weakened immune system has been fighting more than one thing.
I’ve not been able to do much since last Tuesday afternoon, when the malaise really kicked into high gear. I don’t remember shingles being that bad in that respect last time I had it; maybe it gets worse as you get older. Happily, that phase seems to have passed now, so I should be able to get some good work done from home next week; all I really managed this week was reading and occasionally responding to my email.
I’m staying away from the office because although I can’t give people shingles I can still give them the virus which causes it: which in their case will give them chicken pox. I know at least one person at work who hasn’t had it, and it’s meant to be rather nasty if you get it as an adult. So I think quarantining myself is the responsible thing to do.
