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Showing posts from December, 2015

Shmingles

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More than 3.14! “Shingles”. “Shingles”. Say it. What a horrible word! Why am I writing about shingles? I am currently (end of November 2015) getting shot of a bout of these/this thing. Herpes Zoster . Shiver. NOT Herpes Simplex (the genital ones), thankfully! I have had chickenpox, not as a kid though. I was treat to getting that aged 26 in a hotel, catching it when working near Blackpool; but that’s a different story (haven’t been back to Blackpool since). So that opened the doors to allow shingles to develop. Wonderful! Or not. Shmingles Basics What is shingles? Otherwise known as Herpes Zoster, is a skin manifestation of the dormant chicken pox virus. Chicken pox, once an expected rite of childhood (not me), causes a respiratory syndrome with a widespread rash. The infection eventually resolves and the virus remains in the body, dormant in the roots of nerves at the level of the spine. How dare it. The virus finds a home in the cells of these nerves, alive and u