Turns out its related to the covid spike protein encoding in the dermis

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cia2.12278

Why is there not a full cure for shingles

I'm in the middle of my first bout with shingles. This has been the most painful thing I have ever experienced.

I've learned a lot in the past week. If you are in a situation like mine you might consider:

1. Remove as much arginine as possible from your diet immediately. Apparently the virus needs arginine to generate proteins.

2. Up your lysine intake. Blocks the same sites that utilize arginine.

3. Take an antiviral as soon as possible. I used call-on-doc, and had my first dose within an hour of creating an account. People in my situation get postherpetic neuralgia almost 50% of the time, which an antiviral reduces to 10%.

4. Take 50mg zinc.

5. A heating pad reduced my pain considerably.

6. A small dose of ibuprofen had a profound impact on my ability to sleep.

My vegan diet relies heavily on nuts, seeds and grains, which have terrible lysine/arginine ratios. For the moment I am having fruit and yogurt for breakfast, avocado and green beans for lunch, and cooked vegetables and greens for dinner.

I'm 50 years old and currently have shingles on my right side from my waist to my thigh it's annoying, and it hurts a bit when I'm sitting, but otherwise, it's really not that big of a deal. I just got put on acyclovir. The rash showed up about 3 days ago.

Should I expect things to get much worse? Some of the things I'm reading make me think I'm about to experience a really bad thing. So if you're your case of shingles really wasn't that big of a deal, upvote. If not, share with me what I should expect based on general experiences

Did anyone here not use antivirals and let your body clear it on its own ? Dr. Diagnosed me with shingles it’s beneath my right bum cheek. She gave me an antiviral cream and advised to take tablets if rash hasn’t improved in 3 days . It’s been 2.5 days now and that rash is getting slightly worse each day, I am not having any pain except when my clothes brush off the wound . I had a large spot for about 1 week and rash for about 4-5 days. So 11-12 days all together. I don’t like taking medication unless really needed and online it says it will clear by itself in 2-4 weeks. Any advice much appreciated.

EDIT: thanks so much everyone for the advice , I am going to get anti viral medication tomorrow.

I put down a deposit in late April 2024 for a "sit-all-you-can" tattoo session that took place last May 24. Everything was going well enough in my life at the time. Fast forward three weeks and I somehow manage three separate, necessary trips to local emergency rooms within three days (May 19–21). I was diagnosed by my family doctor with shingles on May 22. I am a 25-year-old cisgender female. Full-time university student with two part-time jobs.

Soon after getting my diagnosis, I message all the important people in my life my wacky health update (I'm literally half the "risk factor" age for shingles—I know there are folks on this sub that have gotten them at a younger age and/or get the rashes/pain on a regular basis, but this is still crazy to me). After that, I tell my boss. I also figure it's probably a good idea to let my [next/upcoming] tattoo artist know, too.

She let me know that, (1) she is vaccinated; and, (2) she has already had shingles once in the past (as a teenager). But, if I was feeling unwell, we could reschedule. "I want you to have the best experience possible, so whatever you’re comfortable with works for me," is literally part of what she messaged me (what a sweetheart).

Up to me, eh? Well, when I asked my godmother (who is a nurse), whether or not there was more I could be doing for pain relief (was already taking prescribed Auro-Valacyclovir and applying calamine lotion), she replied, "Not really. That's nerve pain, not just regular pain." Shit. Did I really want to get tattooed while I had "nerve pain"? Probably not (I'm a Pisces, it doesn't take much for me to cry actual sad tears), but... I then went to Reddit.

I don't refer to Reddit like everything on it is factual, but I do like [some of] the community aspect of the site. It can be comforting to know that just about any topic you can think of probably has a little community of some sort. I think it can be helpful to get multiple opinions on things, especially when all that comes up on Google is a bunch of manicured articles on health/wellness websites (since they need to be informative and accurate without scaring people). And presumably, most of the quality responses written on this website were written by human beings. I believe in the strength of peer support/peer testimony/group therapy.

Anyway, neither my Google search/es nor Reddit seemed to have the answers I was looking for about getting tattooed while during with shingles. So, I had to go through with my original appointment date. For science. Fuck around and find out.

I considered writing a really long post (I realize I'm doing it now, but I meant more like a journal/diary entry, or specific tips/advice for getting through it) but figured an AMA might be more useful should anyone have any really specific questions.

TL;DR - I think the title works pretty well?

Hi, my husband was diagnosed with Shingles 2 weeks ago. He is only 31 and had chicken pox as a child. He had Covid over Christmas and my mom and his mom heard that other younger adults are developing Shingles after Covid.

His rash was on his neck/cheek/back of ear/side of head. He did the anti-viral, and his dosage was initially 2 per day (Urgent care doctor) and was increased to 3 per day (by an associate of his primary care dr.) He also took Prednisone for 5 days. Then his primary extended the anti-viral another few days because he still felt a little unwell.

It has been 2 weeks and 2 days and he still has nerve pain on his neck/ear area. Once in a blue moon he feels some nerve pain elsewhere. He also still feels a little under the weather. Covid test Saturday was negative. We did just travel to Florida for a planned short visit and had a busy 2 days in the sun and heat, plus not sleeping super well in a strange bed. Today was back to work, but his year round school has half days.

He just feels wiped out and nerve pain. Anyone else feel like this with Shingles??

I messaged my surgeon about this, but I figured I’d ask in here as well. I was diagnosed with shingles next to and in my armpit yesterday and started taking Valtrex right away. I’m scheduled for surgery on 3/26 for an issue with my bile duct. Do you think 3 weeks is enough recovery time from the shingles before having surgery? I really don’t want to postpone the surgery, but obviously I will if I have to.

Has anyone else had cough and runny nose as side effects of the shingles vaccine? Got the 2nd one 4 days ago, which I hear can cause more side effects than the first. It's been the roughest vaccine for me, far worse than the flu or Covid vaccine. Lots of fatigue, muscle soreness. But also cough and runny nose, which I read are uncommon side effects of the vaccine. Feels like a cold, but not as severe as a bad cold, so I don't think it's a cold.

I have bipolar type 2 which has been completely stable for years due to strict adherence to my medication.

I got intraoral shingles for the first time and was given valcyclovir 1,000mg per day, 3x per day for 7 days.

Then I came home and read it can cause hallucinations, mood changes, and mania. I already took my first dose….

Look, I personally want a fan of the whole Covid vaccine thing, but I got them and it’s in the past now. My question is has anyone heard that there may be a connection between the Covid vaccines and a spike in shingles cases over the past couple of years?

Myself and about 5 other people I know around my age(30) have had shingles in the past 12 months and looking at this reddit thingo it seems we’re not alone.

Again just to make clear this isn’t some antivax thing, I’m just wondering if anyone has any further knowledge that could either prove or disprove what I’ve been hearing.

Thanks brothers and sisters, mums and daddies.

On Saturday night my girlfriend noticed redness on my back, but I wasn't concerned. Monday night the rash turned worse, but didn't look like shingles. Tuesday morning I went to urgent care, and we thought it was contact dermatitis. Then this morning the rash looked even worse, so I went back to urgent care and immediately the doctor said it was shingles. The doctor said I have "beautiful shingles that could be shown in a text book", and brought his colleagues over to look. He also said it made his day. I was happy someone got enjoyment out of it. Got to feel like I was in an episode of House or or Grey's Anatomy. Questions or thoughts welcome.

If so, how long prior to development? I’m asking this because of what I heard (read) MMR is tempering with the immune system and may create the precondition for shingles. I would have liked to poll it so we could see percentages but this sub doesn’t allow. Oh, I had my MMR back in 2016 and developed shingles in 2020.

I'm 20 y.o and today got diagnosed with shingles. Doctor said that herpes wakes up when your immune system weakens and that it's mostly elders disease. But I'm only 20 and my immune system should be strong, so I'm worried if I got an HIV. Is here a youngs that got shingles too? Can you share your experience, was your shingles acute form with a lot of pain or not? I think it's my 4th day or something, is pains will go harder or not?

Also what painkillers you use for sleep? Doctor prescribed diclofenac, but I forgot to ask if I can take it before sleep

[starting premise: get your covid-19 vaccine. All the evidence I've seen is that the chances of negative events beyond a sore arm and a day of napping are very low, and covid-19 has killed a LOT people. I will not enter into discussion about this.]

So I'd seen a few people on here posting about getting shingles after getting their covid jab, so I thought I'd look into the data on this. I feel like I'd seen more Pfizer reports; is that a an artifact, or is that real? I'm only looking within the United States, as there's some easy to find data. There's basically two components here: https://data.cdc.gov/Vaccinations/COVID-19-Vaccinations-in-the-United-States-Jurisdi/unsk-b7fc is where you look up how many vaccines have been administered, and https://vaers.hhs.gov/ is where people report negative outcomes from (all) vaccines.

So. In the US there are three vaccine manufacturers, J&J, Moderna, and Pfizer. As of June 24, there have been 12M doses of J&J, 132M doses of Moderna and 176M doses of Pfizer administered. I then went to vaers (and I can't figure out how to share searches from there, but I):

1. grouped results by Vaccine Manufacturer and VAERS ID

2. searched for symptoms = zoster or shingle and selected ( DISSEMINATED VARICELLA ZOSTER VIRUS INFECTION HERPES ZOSTER (all of them) OPTHALMIC HERPES ZOSTER POST HERPATIC NEURALGIA VARICELLA ZOSTER VIRUS INFECTION VARICELLA ZOSTER VIRUS SEROLOGY POSITIVE )

3. COIVD19

and then everything else I just accepted what it said.

Let's look at these numbers, current as of 6/24 because I got distracted a bit.

J&J had 12,139,564 doses administered, 237 instances of shingles-related reports in the database, so that's 2.03 reports/100k doses. Moderna had 132,013,506 doses administered, 1755 instances, so that's 1.33 reports/100k doses Pfizer had 176,285,416 doses administered, 2324 instances, so that's 1.32 reports/100k doses.

So does that mean that people who got J&J are nearly twice as likely to report shingles after? Not necessarily.

So the first thing to draw from that is that Pfizer is the most popular. When I search pfizer on r/shingles, I get 35 hits. (Note that not all of those are adverse; it includes things like PHN being miraculously cured after the second dose of Pfizer https://www.reddit.com/r/shingles/comments/lpb2mb/shingles_postherpetic_neuralgia_resolved_by/) but gives a sense of scale. Moderna I get 24 hits, and J&J/Janssen/Johnson & Johnson I get a total of 2 active hits. That's at least roughly in line with the number of doses administered: you are seeing more reports of Pfizer-related symptoms on r/shingles because there are more people who got that vaccine.

However, Moderna and Pfizer are both 2-dose vaccines, so how many treated patients are we talking about? According to https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7025e1.htm#F1_down, 90% of people who could have got a second dose got it. I'm going to crudely approximate those Moderna and Pfizer vaccines as being 2 shots per person, so we end up with 2.65 reports/100k patients for both of those.

Overall, this doesn't seem particularly high. On average, there's about a million cases of shingles annually in the United States each year (https://www.cdc.gov/dotw/shingles/index.html) so if every adult in the US got vaccinated (if only!) and assuming 209M adults, that would indicate an additional 5559 cases of shingles a year, which is about an additional half a percent of cases (1,005,559/1,000,000), small enough to get lost in the noise.

All of this says: get your covid vaccine. And, as u/SublimeS0u1 pointed out, if you did happen to be unlucky enough to get shingles after your vaccine, please, please, do report it. https://www.reddit.com/r/shingles/comments/na8mwe/if_you_developed_shingles_after_the_covid19/

Disclaimer: I am not a medical doctor or epidemiologist, and this is entirely my own personal work. But I do think this is sorta interesting....

I'm a 65yo male, about 3 months out from a shingles outbreak on the left side of my face - inner ear, mouth, lips, cheek. I've had post-herpetic neuralgia ever since - numbness, tingling, itchiness, insomnia, headaches.
I really don't want to have to experience that again.
However, I'm suspicious of most vaccines. I never took the Covid shots, due to the unknown mRNA technology and the manufacture of spike proteins.
My doctor tells me Shingrix is not mRNA - though that doesn't mean it's free of spike proteins.
I read about severe reactions to the Shingrix vax. I read about shingles reoccurring post-vax.
But the selling point is it's 90 percent effective at stopping Shingles.
I'm debating whether or not to take the shot.... too much is shrouded in secrecy to take that gamble.
There's a little info on the FDA page - I can't find any information about how it is supposed to work in the human body
" Shingrix, a vaccine for the prevention of shingles in adults 50 years of age and older, includes AS01B. AS01B is made of up MPL, a purified fat-like substance, and QS-21 which is purified from the bark of the Quillaja saponaria (soap bark) evergreen tree native to central Chile. "

https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/safety-availability-biologics/common-ingredients-us-licensed-vaccines

I'm on week 5. I was diagnosed too late (10 days) because I never had a rash, only pain. This are of my ribs under my arm hurts the most and I have these small bumps that feel like something between an ant bite or someone stabbing me with a hot needle. But only some times. I was diagnosed as a zoster sine herpes so shingles without a rash. I've posted a few times with my symptoms. I did take antivirals at 10 days but who knows what good they did. I'm at the phase now where it comes and goes. Nothing excruciating. Just insanely obnoxious pains or pinching or itching.

I have terrible health Anxiety so anytime I have to take a medication or read Google I get totally freaked out. The stinging rash appeared on my face near my jawline yesterday and sent pics to my doctor today when I sent my daughter a picture and she said that is Shingles. Doctor apt 4 hours later and was prescribed 1000 mg a Valtrex every 12 hours. I'm more paranoid about the Taking the medicine, would love to hear if any of you took it without many side effects?🙏

It’s been 36 days since my first shingles symptom and I am finally recovering from it! I am also about to enter my third trimester of pregnancy. I would like to get my flu, Covid, and TDAP shots in the next few weeks but am I worried these may cause another shingles flare up. Has anyone gotten any vaccines right after shingles? Would you wait longer to get them? My rash is gone and is now just pink patches in some areas. However, I still have a fair amount of itching.

I’m finally at a point where I feel semi-normal and I’m so so terrified of getting shingles again!

Thanks!!!!

58M, in 2020-'21 I got total of 4 Covid shots. ... In Aug 2025 I got Shingles and had been doing Carnivore OMAD for 4.5 months and had lost 80 lbs. I have heard that OMAD and major weight loss can trigger Shingles. I have also heard that Covid shots makes you susceptible to Shingles. Has anyone here got Shingles 3 to 5 years after getting Covid shots?

How long did it take the scabs from shingles to finally drop off by themselves? How many days or weeks?

Shingles is a deceptively easy disease to understand. For most people you get chicken pox as a kid. The immune system suppresses it. If the body is under a lot of stress for any reason or the immune system is weakened a little bit, because you haven't been eating or drinking well, where you have a tooth infection or some other minor health issue, the immune system may fail to suppress the virus.

Then it comes out, it turns into shingles. Simple. First, some ill feeling. A rash appears and the rash turns into blisters and sores. The blisters can break. When they do, some liquid comes out onto the skin and hardens quickly. This may look like a scab which helps the injured skin heal. Eventually the immune systems kills the virus, now the disease is over. The scab can remain. The problem is finding out how long these scabs hang around for? It seems to be hidden info.

Even though this disease is as old as probably mankind itself is. This info is out there because billions of people have had it. While the information is known, you can't find it. If you don't think so, go out and try to find it. Research it. You won't be able to find it. Not without paying some medical provider to tell you.

Problem with going to a medical provider during cold and flu season, it's a good place to get sick in which case, you have a whole new set of problems. Not to mention all the antibiotic resistance infections that are out, in the medical establishment. Maybe you're better off, sitting at home and wait for these scabs to fall off by themselves. That's fine but what would be better if someone could tell you, that's had this experience. How long they had to wait for the scabs to fall off?

Scabs are a tricky thing. You don't wan to pick them, then you can cause a new infection even if shingles is already gone. You can always get a new bacterial infection, nothing to do with shingles.

Why because lots of common bacteria always live on our skin. If it ever breaks the skin, you can get a new infection. May be you are better off waiting for the scabs to fall off which you know they eventually have to do and that weight could be better if you have a light at the end of the tunnel by knowing approximately how long it will take for these scabs to finally fall off safely.

Of course everyone heals a bit faster or slower. What the time frame is for one person may be different from one person to the next. There is kind of a range. If enough people will share what their experience is, any person now or in the future that reads this thread, if you would kindly extend yourself to please share. What your experience is?

May be you don't remember exactly but approximately could be good enough. Of course any help would be appreciated. Thanks for extending yourself to post on behalf of myself and anyone that reads this thread and could be helped by your comments.

I am not a medical professional. Probably you are not either. There is no medical advice here. It is people sharing what their experience is, without providing an opportunity for the medical establishment to profit from our ignorance. Sometimes people can help each other.

Please help by posting today. Thank you for taking time to read this.

Hiya all wanted to share my story as a reminder to leave the mf shingles alone.

I had some spots come up on my right hip and thought nothing of it until the same came up on my lower leg (pics 1 and 2) went to the pharmacy who said it was likely shingles and gave me a weeks course of acyclovir. Please not i have eczema and scratch in my sleep, i also have tricotillomania and pick at my skin like a mad man so this led to me stupidly picking at the spots.

The shingles spots ultimately scabbed over and i thought all was well until a rash appeared on my neck and left arm. went back to the pharmacy as i thought it was a return of the shingles, they then told me because it was a reoccurrence that i had to speak to my GP. I somehow managed to get a same day appointment (who knew such a thing even existed anymore) and was told i had impetigo due to an infection in the spots. I’m now on a 5 day course of antibiotics and am leaving the rash WELL alone.

Feel free to ask laugh at my misery and ask me anything.