Beautiful Day & Shingles

The weather turned out glorious here in my little corner of Scotland, so I arranged to meet my friend "Enthusiastic Mum (EM)" at the park. Now, 1 week ago I would not have even entertained the thought of doing this, so this is a BIG step.

I drove to the park and we actually arrived before EM, that's unusual for me, I'm aways late! There was another person I knew at the park so we chatted for a bit, I had no major pangs of anx. Then EM arrived with her 2 girls and we had such a lovely chat sitting in the warm sun while our girls played together.

I only felt mildly anxious when I became aware of my arm pains, let me tell you about them...

I have recurring bouts of shingles on the palm of my right hand, it only happens once every few years and the episodes are becoming less and less.

One of the early signs I am about to have an attack is arm pains and highly sensitive skin on my inner wrist. When I get an attack of this, it's not just the blisters that are the issue (they are really horrible and painful), but also it usually poisons my lymphatic system and I can see the red lines of the poison track up my arm, my whole arm becomes painful to move and the lymph nodes in my underarm swell, then I have to go on high dose antibiotics. It makes me feel really poorly.

So of course, I am now anxious about this, we are due to go on holiday on Saturday, I really do not want to feel ill. I tried to phone the docs today but I couldn't get an appointment so I'll have to ring tomorrow to see if one becomes available.

The problem is I have to take the anti-viral meds as soon as I feel the tingle to minimise the attack, but I couldn't do that so now I'm worried I will have a bad one.

Sometimes I do get the pre-symptoms and nothing happens, so fingers crossed nothing will come of this.

Interestingly, I checked on the web to see if I can take Acyclovir and Fluoxetine together (I can) and found an article that Fluoxetine has been linked with reactivating the herpes (shingles) virus. Bugger!!