Reply #13: reoccurence is rare

[Uben]

I haven't had a problem since. I started taking niacin (nicotinic acid) last week, and it makes you "flush", which feels like a light case of the shingles, for about 30 minutes. But nothing like the real thing. My shingles were unilateral, as most are, but it was from the top of my head to the tip of my toes, on the left side.

I have over a hundred pain pills here at the house, left over from my broken leg and my wife's cancer surgery. Neither of us like to take them because they give us constipation, which is sometimes worse than the pain! If I do need to take one, I always take a vegetable laxative with it.

When I had the shingles, I just wanted to sleep as much as possible. Less suffering that way, so I would take sleeping pills and sleep four hours, then suffer four hours, rinse and repeat till it was over. There's very little chance you will ever have a reoccurence, so I wouldn't worry about it. Those poor people who have chronic cases have my sympathies. That would be terrible to live with, but some people do.