Ouch.

I won't go into the long boring details of the back and forth to the doctor and phone calls, but suffice it to say, I've been through the ringer. I've been hurting for days. Today I have the correct diagnosis. I'm still waiting for pain medicine. Waiting and waiting. I'm exhausted. Tired. Snippy. Little patience. LOtS of Pain. Have to take an anti-viral pill 5 times daily for 7 days. All this because I had the chicken pox and now it's come out of dormancy. Here's what I found:

Is Shingles a contagious disease?
Although the VZV virus that causes chickenpox and shingles disease can spread through the direct contact of any healthy person (who never had chickenpox in his/her life) with the open wounds/rashes/blisters of the patient suffering from shingles disease, Shingles is not a fully contagious disease.

A healthy person can never develop Shingles disease after he/she comes in informal contact (not involving much of physical contact, or a direct contact with the rash) with the patient suffering from Shingles, or sneezing or coughing of patient when the healthy person is in vicinity. The only phase when this disease is contagious is when the patient has developed blisters with clear fluid and the rash covering the blisters has not developed crusts.

Tips for the patients:

• Shingles is a contagious disease during the phase when patient develops blisters till the formation of crusts, patient should be careful to cover the blisters in order to stop the disease from spreading
• Follow the treatment regime strictly that your doctor has prescribed
• Avoid exposure to sunlight and keep patient in a cool and dry room
• Avoid scratching the area of rash

Side note: My outbreak is on my trunk. I can't stand ANYTHING near it, much less touching it, but I'm taking all precautions to keep this from spreading further. Please let me know if you've never had chicken pox. Please pray that I can sleep tonight. Walgreens hasn't called with my pain meds by now so I figure I'll have to call my Dr. AGAIN tomorrow to remind them...