A BABE A DAY + Daliy moans 

Shingles 5 – the left overs

Over 3 weeks have now passed since I first picked up this unpleasant thing and it has still not left me.

My only remaining symptoms sound insignificant, but belie their unpleasantness.

Most of the scabs, resulting from the blisters, have now gone, although I will undoubtedly be left with a scar above my right eye from one of the larger ones.

The problems that remain relate to areas of my face that are still reddened and, in particular, the area from my right eyebrow (which still has the remains of the sores on it) down to my upper eye lid.

The problem is nothing more than itching, but it is continuous, cannot be scratched because of the remaining sensitivity, and it is a painful itch. It makes getting a good night’s sleep impossible – something I have not had for over 3 weeks. I have tried pain killers, creams of various types, ice (which gives short term relief), but nothing seems to resolve the problem.

Chicken pox

To add to my problems with shingles, my wife (who unbeknown to both of us) has never had chicken pox, has now managed to contract that from my shingles. Her problems started late last week, which tie in perfectly with the 2 week incubation period for the virus. She will have caught it from me during my first week with shingles.

As stated before, if you think you have shingles, contact your doctor asap.

Shingles 4

I am continuing my log about my shingles episode simply to enable anyone else suffering from this virus to get an idea of how long it lasts, what to expect and when things start to turn around.

!8 days have now passed since the first signs, of what I now know to be shingles, started to appear.

Today is the first day that the head pains – I assume from the nerve endings, have started to subside a little. That said I took pain killers only once yesterday, so the pain must be decreasing.

As anyone with this virus will be able to point out, it is not the severity of the pain that gets to you, but the relentlessness of it – it just never goes away and it wears you down.

Getting up in the morning is a major effort and within 4 or 5 hours I start to feel tired again, no doubt as a result of the constant head pains.

One point that I have previously made, but feel should be made again, is that anyone with shingles should avoid “at all costs” scratching the affected area. I am convinced that doing this a couple of days ago made matters far worst and resulted in more of the blisters starting to form.

Another disconcerting symptom that I am still suffering from is the sensation around my previously swollen right eye area. The swelling went down about a week ago, but the whole area still remain tender and the sensation is exactly as it was when the swelling actually caused my eye to close. It is all still quite unpleasant. To make matters more unpleasant, my eye is still not creating or dispersing tear fluid correctly resulting in the eye feeling dry, but also weeping.

The above not withstanding, overall I feel considerably better today than over the last two and a half weeks. Hopefully the end is nigh!

Shingles 3

Drugs

My doctor prescribed two treatments.

The first was 800mg Aciclovir tablets to be taken 5 times per day over 7 days. This is the strongest dosage possible and indicates the severity of the virus (4 times the strength of a cold sore prescription).

I was also prescribed Zovirax eye ointment to be applied to the eye, also 5 times daily. When my eye was at its most swollen this level of application proved impossible.

These drugs are actually about stopping the spread and re-occurrence of the virus and do not help with the pain which you can attack in two ways.

Non prescribed pain relief (consult your doctor)

I used Co-codamol tablets (containing codeine and paracetamol) for pain relief and these can be taken every 4 hours.

I also used Ibuprofen simultaneously every 4 hours, but with a 2 hour stagger over the co-codamol. These help with swelling and inflammation. It works as a two pronged attack to ease the symptoms.

Be warned you cannot escape the pain, inflammation or discomfort, but only reduce it. If you think your daily use of pain killers will exceed the maximum recommendation, try to reduce their use during the day so that you can take them at night. I assure you that this is when you will need them the most.

I also used calamine lotion. This is cheap, but does give some relief to the burning sensation that occurs over the blistered area. The lotion is milky in texture, but dries to a powder as soon as you apply it. Do not apply it to any areas where the skin had broken and be aware that it is hard to wash off – not that that needs to be a concern.

At times when the pain was very extreme I also use a bag of frozen peas as an ice pack (with a cotton cloth around it).

One final suggestion which sounds odd, but works, is this. There may be times when the affected areas literally feel on fire, but are just too sensitive to touch. By chance I discovered that gently pulling a silk handkerchief across the area actually gave me some relief. For some reason, unbeknown to me, the silk actually feels cool and the lightness of it provided sufficient friction to curb the itching whilst not actually resulting in any pain.

Current state of my shingles

Now 16 days since the shingles started, most of the swelling has abated, but the burning sensation still persists over the right side of my head and face. I still feel tired and the discomfort is still at a level that makes serious concentration (ie writing this) quite difficult. My skin in the affected areas is also very dry and flaky, which I am assuming is normal. If there is no further improvement by the end of the week (ie the pain) I will see my doctor again.

What you need to do if you think you may have shingles

You MUST make an appointment with your doctor immediately. Shingles is a serious illness and in the case of facial forms, it can seriously damage you vision and even your hearing if it is not carefully monitored.

Shingles 2

First signs of improvement

The balloon like swellings started to go down on late Monday (8 days after the 1st symptoms) and continued through Tuesday and Wednesday. I was just about well enough to go to a funeral on the Thursday. (My doctor confirmed that this was fine and that I was not contagious to anyone other than someone with an immune system deficiency. (This would include an expectant mother or someone with AIDS.)

The blisters

At first these appear to be filled with clear fluid, but this soon turns into puss and as you overcome the illness they crust over with the appearance of scaps (as if you had grazed the skin). Picking or scratching them may cause an infection, so try not to – it is difficult as they itch continuously.

Now Friday, 13 days after the first symptoms started, most of the swellings have all but disappeared. I have a large number of big and small scabs on my face and enough pain to persuade me to take pain killers before I sat down to write this.

My right eye remained free from the virus although the lids are still swollen and quite sore. The eye also seems very dry although the eye does weep at both sides. I put this down to the swollen lids preventing normal disposal of the tear fluid across the eye’s surface.

I still have a high level of sensitivity over the whole of the right side of my head, making resting my head on a pillow slightly uncomfortable, but sleep has been manageable for the last 2 nights.

The blisters/sores are offering an ever decreasing amount of pain, but do itch and look very unpleasant. My energy levels are however increasing and I feel far healthier than in previous days. Headaches are no longer continuous, but come and go and I can concentrate without the distraction of pain.

What you need to do if you think you may have shingles

You MUST make an appointment with your doctor immediately. Shingles is a serious illness and in the case of facial forms, it can seriously damage you vision and even your hearing if it is not carefully monitored.

Shingles 1

I have been suffering from shingles for the last week and a half and, having had no idea how unpleasant, painful or unsightly this virus is, intend to make several entries about it to advise and benefit anyone else who contracts it. Hopefully it will give you an idea of what is in store, plus some ideas on treating the pain.

About Shingles

Shingles comes in a range of varieties and my version, the cranial one (ie affecting one side of the head and upper face), is one of the most unpleasant. The worst version affects the optical nerve and can damage the eyes. Lesser strains attack the torso.

The actual virus is part of the herpes group that also includes cold sores, but its cause is the chicken pox virus. Anyone who has contracted (and seemingly recovered from) the chicken pox virus as a child now has the virus lying dormant in their nerve roots. For reasons not fully understood, but thought to be connected with aging or being run down, this virus can re-emerge as Shingles. I have to say I am neither old, nor did I feel run down, but it still got me.

Symptoms

I started to get what seemed like a headache on a Sunday afternoon. Two days later the pain was still there and I also noticed a lump on the outside of my upper jaw – similar to an abscess. My jaw line also expanded.

By the Wednesday I had started to develop two areas of small blister like sores, one around my right eye brow and the other at my hair line (center of the head).

By the end of the day these blisters had increased, enlarged and were starting to interconnect – they looked a bit like cold sores. ( I saw my doctor at lunch time, but before the sores appeared. Shingles was not at that time confirmed, although it was, she later told me, suspected).

The symptoms increased and I saw my doctor again at 8.30am on Friday morning. She diagnosed Shingles before I had even sat down, but in a worrying way by saying, “I am very sorry, you have shingles”. The warning tone was ominous.

At that stage I did not appreciate quite what was on the horizon. My doctor also made an appointment for me at an eye clinic for later that morning and prescribed some medication.

Over the weekend the number and size of the blister like spots increased, but my biggest concern (and cause of pain) was the enormous swellings on my forehead, temple and especially above, below and to the side of my right eye. These swellings caused my right eye to close completely and made the right side of my face completely unrecognisable. The blisters also extended onto and over the top of my head, but all local to the right side. My eyelids also became inflamed and my doctor suspected that there was a small ulser on the inside of the upper lid - Not however on the eye itself, this had been declared safe!

Warning – If the virus reaches an eye it can (although it usually does not) cause damage to the eye sight. An early sign of this attack is the presence of blisters on the nose and particularly at the tip of the nose. This suggests that the shingles have reached the optical nerve. If this happens you must ensure your doctor is aware of it and that your eye is constantly monitored and treated by your doctor and an optical specialist.

At the virus’s height I also felt very unwell, similar to the fatigue and exhaustion that result from the flu virus and this is also made worse by periods of cold followed by hot sweats. Sleeping is near impossible. All told, at its most aggressive, shingles really does make you wish you could go to sleep and never wake up, but it does pass.

What you need to do if you think you may have shingles

You MUST make an appointment with your doctor immediately. Shingles is a serious illness and in the case of facial forms, it can seriously damage you vision and even your hearing if it is not carefully monitored.

Sick as a dog

I have literally dragged myself out of bed this afternoon after having become the victim of an abscess on Sunday.

The problem is not the abscess itself, but the fact that its location in my jaw has resulted in headaches, blisters on my face and other unpleasant manifestations, none of which suggested the actual cause or location of the problem.

Now on antibiotics I am slightly better, but with a complexion worthy of a horror movie. Apparently the source of the problem is rarely painful and I was fortunate to notice the widening of my right hand jaw in the mirror. If I could duplicate the effect on the left jaw I might actually look like the formula one racing driver Coultard –failing that a hamster.

Struggling with “poor health” (I am really quite fit normally), I have been unable to resolve my PC virus problem and it now looks like another week of inactivity will pass before I do anything.

Here is a babe to cheer me up.

First new entry for a while

My lack of blog entries is a result of a virus that has debilitated my internet access and caused all manner of problems, especially where some password protected service is required.

I have, however, decided to risk all and make a blog for today, although I have little to say.

We hear that Tony Blair may actually be serious about “abdicating” as prime minister before compulsory retirement – I will believe it when it actually happens, however the thought of his farewell tour is something to look forward to! Who will be his opening act, Maggie!

Steve Irwin's death is very freaky. It seems incredible that someone who has risked all with so many dangerous creatures should ultimately fall victim to one of the most docile. It just shows that anything can be dangerous given a certain sequence of bizarre events.

Finally, ITV 4 seem to have run out of original reruns and are now repeating the various Jason King, Champions and UFO episodes that they kicked off with. Hopefully they will have something new from the 60’s or 70’s in the pipeline for us before long!

Just back

After the disappointment of having my main site disappear from google 10 days before I went on holiday, it is now back – was it just a glitch?

Returning from a holiday is one of the most depressing parts of life and after 23 days in Galicia I am far from glad to be back in the dump known as the UK. I can no longer watch the news again (it is all about how to tax us more, stop us using our cars and rip us off to the benefit of the rest of Europe – and then there is the crime!) and it seems everyone has the same opinion of this awful country as me. I add a correction to its name by the way, it is of course now a satellite of Pakistan.

As my commercial endeavours (re Galicia) start to fruit we are considering the possibility of moving there full time. The decision is still some way off, but distinct money making possibilities exist, albeit during the summer months and with our language advantages we are perhaps better placed than most considering the same prospect.

Back home

Back from my hols with plenty to moan about and lots of other stuff too - but catching up with work and emails must take priority, so no serious entries for another few days. Here is some totty.

Evil google

I am away on holiday for most of this month and that, combined with my broken finger, will result in no further additions until probably August.

Google really do suck. After masses of google hits over the last few months they have now removed my main site from every google search.

Is there a problem with the site?

No, it has more pages than ever indexed, but none now on searches, even though google’ own official stats had it in the top 10 out of no less than 11 6m plus searches just last Tuesday. (and page two of several searches up to 200m.)

My guess is that either a major Irish airline (who I am not overly critical of, but honest about), or one of 2 state funded Galician tourist guides, have spoken to their adsense reps and asked them to block my site on the quiet. It is getting too many hits and either gives a negative vibe to the airline, or steals visitors and accommodation booking from the guides.

All told it is pretty sick and a small scale example of google’s manipulating of search results, a bigger case of which was recently highlighted in connection with China.

What can I do about it? Absolutely nothing. Google deny that anything has changed and claim that they never manually interfere with results – all pretty sad – especially for me.