I Got Shingles
They call 'em shingles, but I never seen 'em shing.
I got shingles. Not just one shingle. Worse. Plural. Multiple shingles.
Exactly how many shingles I got is harder to say. At least two, obviously. Probably less than 1,000. Maybe somewhere between 50 and 500 shingles.
I am not a medical professional. I am only an aging man who now has shingles, and this is my story.
A few days ago I found myself experiencing discomfort on the left half of my body, specifically on my torso, more specifically on the left side of my back and stomach (both of which are conveniently located on and around my torso). It was a mild discomfort that made me not want to lean anything that would put pressure in those areas. It felt a little like having a sunburn, or rug burn. I thought maybe I had just been rotting on the couch for too long.
The next day I examined myself and noticed a small cluster of red bumps on my stomach. Assuming they were bug bites, I almost immediately jumped to the worst possible conclusion: I had bed bugs.
This began a multi-day process of excruciating anxiety in which I did whatever I could think of to rid my home of bed bugs, which to be clear, were not there. I never found any evidence of bed bugs, but at the time, this seemed like the only logical conclusion.
I tore apart my bedding, had everything deep cleaned, and sprayed the entire area thoroughly with high octane bug murder-juice. Everything I read online (a highly trusted source) said that it might be extremely difficult to cleanse the area fully of bugs and their eggs. I therefore opted not to re-make my bed with the clean sheets and blankets, for fear that they would simply get re-infested. Instead, I slept on my couch for several nights. While sleeping on said couch, I did not notice any new “bites” appear. Therefore I assumed that I was correct in my assumption, and that the bugs must have been confined to the bed area. On couch, I was safe. In couch we trust.
Meanwhile, what I thought were bites (but were as a reminder, shingles) were getting worse. While they were itchy to start, they gradually turned into blisters and spread little by little across my fragile, poorly maintained body. With the blistering came not just itching, but pain. Shooting pain, that manifested like a tingling, burning sensation. I had to completely avoid putting any pressure on the affected areas. This meant only lying or sleeping on my right side. I normally sleep on my left side, so as you can imagine, this was hell.
The blistering and burning weren’t necessarily a common symptom of bed bug bites. I thought perhaps I was having an allergic reaction. Finally, during one of my many Google searches looking for more information, a description of my symptoms came up with the shingles result. I got the following info from the Mayo Clinic:
Shingles is a viral infection that causes a painful rash. Shingles can occur anywhere on your body. It typically looks like a single stripe of blisters that wraps around the left side or the right side of your torso.
This was it. This described what I was going through exactly. The (upsetting) images online also matched the (horrifying) images on my body. All the pieces of the shingles puzzle were falling into place. I had shingles. I have shingles. I got them (the shingles).
After visiting with a doctor, the doctor confirmed to me that I had what I already believed that I had (shingles). I was prescribed some antiviral medication. I bought some over the counter pain meds. I am now on the slow road to shingles recovery.
Who gets shingles? This isn’t a disease that real people in the year 2026 get. This is in a category with things like scabies, and leprosy, and gout. Joke diseases. Punchlines.
Shingles is what Monty Burns gets, or Oliver Twist, or a London chimney sweep. Shingles is a Mary Poppins ass disease.
Apparently, anyone who has ever had chicken pox has the shingles virus inside of them, dormant, lying in wait, waiting for a time to rise up and strike. It is more common in older people, particularly when you hit your 50s. If this is the case, then you can consider me to be wise beyond my years.
So here I sit, typing this, with shingles. Hopefully the medication will lessen them and help them to go away within a couple of weeks. For now, they are extremely painful.
At best, I can feel an unpleasant, low-grade tingling sensation in the problematic zones. At worst, it feels like sharp, aching, burning cramps across the entire left side of my torso. There are very few positions left that are comfortable for me to sit or lie down in.
In short, it is the worst pain ever, and probably the worst thing that anyone has ever had to experience ever in the history of pain and medical ailments, and I should be considered a hero and a martyr for enduring this pain and humiliation.
On the bright side, I did not get bed bugs (just shingles).