Hi Alison:
It's kind of a long story.
In April of this year I was diagnosed with a very loud heart murmur, I knew I always had a murmur but never though much about it. That started me off on a lot of testing.
I got the shingles in May. The rash was from my sternum, on my right breast all the way around to my back bone.
When it first started I just had the pain and no rash. I had just completed a 2-day stress test on the Fri. and by Sun. the pain in my chest was bad and getting worse. Went to the ER and they thought it was my heart and so they admitted me for 5 days for testing. All the while the pain kept getting worse and worse.
On the 5th day they decided that although I still had the murmur and in a lot of pain, it was not heart related so they sent me home with hydromorphone and meloxicam.
The next day the rash broke out and I went back to the doctors and that's when he knew what it was. He put me on Valacyclovir.
It is a miserable thing the pain, the itchyness drove me nuts. I like you read all I could about it on the web. One place said to use apple cider viniger to relieve the itchyness ... it helped a little.
It took until Aug. that I could see some improvement but it was still pretty painful.
At that time with a the heart testing I had done they said that the murmur was coming from my aortic valve ... it had narrowed quite servely and I would need open heart surgery to have it replaced.
With all the pain I had been though and was still in the thought of more surgery pain was overwelming, I said that they had to try to lessen the shingles pain before the surgery. He put me on a medicine that my husband uses for his peripheral neuropathy in his feet ... it helps with nerve pain.
That medicine made all the difference in the world. It cut the pain down a lot and in a few days I was almost pain free.
On Aug. 24 I had my aortic valve replaced with a mechanical valve and just in the last couple of weeks have started to feel normal again and have my strength almost back.
Fron time to time the rash is still itchy and is visiable also still numb.
I hope that you and your dr. have caught this early and it will soon be a distant mermory.
Take care
Nancy
