It’s gone! Jeannie was so excited! Within a week, what had started out as painful shingles had just disappeared. She was pregnant, and since she was already having complications from the pregnancy she was really distraught over the possibility of adding the pain of shingles to her list of problems. She was obviously relieved when it went away so quickly.
Shingles is essentially the chicken pox that you had as a child. The virus hides in a nerve somewhere in your body, and when your immune system is down — for any reason — it can come out and make a rash. It’s the same virus you had as a child that’s been hiding inside you for decades!
You don’t catch shingles from someone else – you had it all along. By the same token, you can’t give it to someone else. You can, however, cause chicken pox in someone who has never been exposed to it before.
Since it hides in the nervous system it can show up anywhere in the body, from the top of the head to the tip of the toe. Also, because of this, it has certain characteristics:
- It stays in the nerve so it can only be on one side — the right or the left, never crossing the midline of the body.
- It often starts with...
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If you’re looking for help from shingles look no further.

During this Holiday season we decided to put together some eating tips for alternating recipes and ways to avoid the calorie laden dishes served at every holiday party or meal. These tips should not only get you through the rest of the Holiday season, but they will also serve you well at any social event or dinner party into next year.
The shingles virus is also known as the Herpes Zoster virus (not at all associated with other herpes viruses), which translates as belt or girdle from Latin and French origins. The Herpes Zoster skin rash erupts around the trunk of the body – like a girdle! I’m so glad I never had to wear one, but if wearing a girdle isn’t pleasant, not so much more is having shingles. It can take away your breath with pain, bind up the back with lesions and squeezes the life out of you!
Although shingles can affect any age group, it’s more prevalent and more painful in older people. Former President Richard M. Nixon was just shy of his 72nd birthday when he became subject to the horrific pain of shingles.
In 1977, Dr. Charles Carson and I never heard of each other. However, the next year, separate but similar incidents in each of our lives bonded us… until last week. That’s when Chuck’s amazing life, and thirty-four years of pain and suffering came to an end. And antibiotics may have had a hand in it… but not in the way you might think.


Many of us stuffer with stress, some of us more than others. However, few of us are really aware that stress impacts our health. Fear not. There are simple steps you can take to help better manage it.





