The Shingles Attack That Wasn’t…

 Original Publish Date - July 25th 2017

I’ve suffered from recurrent Shingles. If you’ve watched the TV commercials for the Shingles vaccine, you know how miserable and painful a shingles attack must be. And having suffered through more than one in my lifetime, I can absolutely assure you how horrible the experience is.

If you aren’t familiar with Shingles, it’s caused by a latent response of the Herpes Varicella Zoster virus, the same virus that causes chicken pox. So if you ever had chicken pox, the virus doesn’t go away, but actually becomes dormant waiting for a chance to express itself once again through Shingles.

And yikes! It’s awful. Painful (and I do mean PAINFUL) rash with fluid filled blister develop most generally on one side of the body. Most commonly, shingles occurs in folks who are over 50 (or 60) and/or have a weakened immune system. Unfortunately, I check both boxes. Years ago, during my two previous outbreaks with Shingles, it was incapacitating… just horrific pain and even bacterial co-infections. Combined, the two previous outbreaks were probably about 4 months long.

So last week when I saw the rash and blisters beginning to form on my inner left thigh, I was, to say the least, freaked out. By Thursday evening, I had a 5” x 6” patch of Shingles that was growing right along with the pain and discomfort. Already too late to call my doctor’s office, I thought “hmmm. I wonder what CBD does for Shingles?” A quick check on the internet, and I found a ton of articles that showed how promising CBD was in treating Shingles. SO I started treating the rash with our em·body salve and popped a 25 mg capsule for the pain.

By morning, the rash and blisters were almost gone and I had a restful, pain-free night’s sleep. Always one who believes in “traditional medicine” in combination with our company’s philosophy, I did visit my doctor’s office the following afternoon to get a prescription for valocyclovir. The nurse seemed generally shocked that I had shingles and was working that day. When asked “on a scale of 1 to 10, what was pain level, “I had to reply it was only a 1 (if anything).

SO what was shaping up to be a pretty tough weekend, just simply fizzled. I’ve continued to apply the salve 2-3 times daily, and the skin appears almost normal…slightly red but no rash or visible blisters. I could even drop the 25mg capsules by Sunday (still of course taking my daily 10 mg every morning!) . I am taking the anti-viral as prescribed, and I’m sure that helped as well, though last time I was on anti-virals for months and the treatment period was remarkably different.

So why am I sharing this with all of you? Well first, talk to your doctor and see if the Shingles vaccine is right for you, and bypass all of this for yourself if you can. But the main reason is to simply share with you my personal experience, and somewhat amazement in how well our products work! And I must say, that’s extremely heartening.

with all our best,

Tom