Shingles....more like shackles

  Let's talk shingles...Shingles Info, they are a horrible thing, especially when you are in the 2% of the people that have pain for over a year from this. I think that my body is now programmed for chronic EVERYTHING! Plus anything that is odd or strange to have happen....it WILL happen to me. SHIZNET!!! This sucks. I am not this person...at least I didn't think I was.

  So.....shingles...OMG! This hurts....a LOT! How can I adequately explain this? Well I probably can't but I'll give it a try. You see nothing wrong on the outside of your body. No clue that something is going on. Inside your body, sometimes if feels like something is on fire. The pain is excruciating. Nerve endings are going nuts, and I have learned over the years there is NOTHING like nerve pain!! But you don't "LOOK LIKE" you would be hurting! ARRRGGGHHHHH I have heard that soooo many times I want to scream! Even the doctor...they don't "see" anything wrong, they don't "feel" anything wrong when they poke on you. (they poke and it hurts so much your screaming in your head but out loud you just make a pain sound) and by the way...the dr doesn't think it's THAT bad.

  Should I cry? Pitch a fit? Go to the appt. in the pj's I have lived in the last 6 months? How do I get across to the dr that this is HORRIBLE? I have worked a lot of years NOT to show how bad it is...nobody wants to see that all the time. Bad enough I have to handle it all the time. But I digress.

  Trying to convey to 3 different doctors I have been to, the all encompassing nature of this pain! The amount of inflammation that has come along with it which has made me MISERABLE! When I say "miserable" this means I have stopped doing.....EVERYTHING. Not that it stops me from "some" things. I mean ALL things! This is NOT an exaggeration. If I say it I mean it. This particular pain has kept me awake for days on end, put me on the floor with sharpness that felt like part of my insides were being ripped out, made sitting in the seat of my car impossible. I got out of breath, at times, just walking down the hallway. Just getting up sometimes felt impossible but I had to move, couldn't stay in one position for any length of time. How do I correctly convey this to the dr so that she really understands it?? I think it is impossible when they aren't really listening to everything you are saying anyway. "THEY" already have an idea of what they THINK is wrong no matter what you say.  This is why this has gone on for a year now! NOT LISTENING!! I could have had the antibiotics to help this a longgggg time ago. I probably would have if this dr hadn't refused to accept my medical records, which were too thick, she just wanted to "start fresh"! By the way, this was a warning sign I brushed off.

  In my defense, the reason I ignored that was it took everything I had to get to that dr's appt that day....and I really felt too horrible to make another appt with another dr and go again! So I stayed by default. Which was my fault! Also, my mistake! Yeah I have made a LOT of those over the years.