It began with a slight irritation, the kind you experience when the tag on your shirt rubs against your neck, except this was just below the waist-line on the upper buttocks.
It progressed to a full-blown rash looking spot about the size of a fist, except this "rash" didn't itch. It was very tender, almost like a bruise. Over the period of a couple of days, it became down right painful.
When the second and third spots appeared, one above the knee on the inner thigh, the other on the shin-bone, I figured it was time to check it out on the old trusty Medical website. What I found came as a surprise!
I had heard of this disease but I had absolutely no clue what it was, where it came from, how it was contracted or what the treatment was. I always thought it was something that old people got, not young'uns like me. But after a visit to my little Korean doctor around the corner (this was Tuesday so I was in luck), it was confirmed ...
Shingles.
However, since I never do anything the normal way I wasn't surprised when, after he looked at the rash (now in four different places), he had a very puzzled look on his face and excused himself for a moment. When he came back into the room, he had his own trusty medical book.
He opened it to a page with a diagram of the human body and all of the nerve tracts; he touched one of the rash areas, looked back at the book and then followed what should have been a nerve tract; he then did the same thing with another rash area.
When he shook his head and said something like "Hmmm, very interesting" and my response was "What??" he explained that normally (key word here), shingles follows a single nerve tract. My case was following four different nerve tracts.
*sigh* At least the treatment is the same for all four ... a quick shot in the butt and a prescription. The good news is that once you've had shingles, the chance of a recurrence is very slim.
The bad news is that I can't wear a dress to the retirement dinner Friday evening because I have this ugly rash on my left leg!
(FYI ... if you've had chickenpox, you are a candidate for shingles! For more information, go to http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2001/301_pox.html)
