Brief Answer:
Some information about shingles.

Detailed Answer:
Hello and welcome,

I had shingles too and know how miserable it can be.

From personal experience, the worst of it is in the first 2 weeks, but the pain goes away only gradually in the first few weeks if you had a bad case of it. Week 3 can still be very bad.

The good news is, if you took the antiviral medicine within the first 3 days of eruptions, it should prevent post herpetic neuralgia (pain that continues for a long time after the shingles itself has resolved).

Shingles is caused by the chicken pox virus (Varicella Zoster, which is in the herpes family). After we have chicken pox as kids, the virus goes into something called the dorsal root ganglion - part of our nervous system located in the spine. There it stays dormant, kept in check by our antibodies that remember the virus from the previous infection. Years later, the immunity to it can drop or our immune system drops temporarily, and the virus comes out along a particular dermatome (an area of skin that receives it's sensation from a particular nerve.)

It is the subject of controversy, but some research suggests that in the past, prior to the chicken pox virus for kids, adults kept up their immunity to varicella zoster by exposures to children with chicken pox in our lives or in our communities. Now with universal immunization for chicken pox in the US, it is rare to encounter kids with chicken pox and people are getting shingles at earlier ages.

There is a shingles vaccine now with the aim of preventing future episodes of shingles. I really am not sure whether to recommend it as it is not as effective as some other vaccines that are important to have. You may want to look into the effectiveness vs lack there of for yourself (after you have fully recovered from the real thing - which will increase your good antibodies to it).

If you are in a great deal of pain, you may want to talk with your doctor about taking the old antidepressant amytriptiline (Elavil) in a low dose as it can be helpful for decreasing nerve pain from post herpetic neuralgia (persistent pain after shingles).

Do get as much rest as you can as your body is fighting an infection.

I hope this helps. There should be a hotline for shingles sufferers to get you though all the weird symptoms and let people know relief is coming.

Please let me know if I can provide further information or clarification.

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