A new study suggests that the shingles vaccine may help prevent dementia by reducing the risk of varicella-zoster virus reactivation.
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It’s chickenpox, which can resurface as shingles in adulthood.
Before there was a vaccine, parents would deliberately expose their kids to chickenpox, reasoning that it would confer long term immunity at an age when an infection was unpleasant but didn’t seem very dangerous. (As opposed to in adulthood, when an infection was likely to be a greater danger.) I don’t think anyone had linked it to neurological problems yet.
Since then, we have found correlation between the varicella zoster virus and multiple sclerosis, and now apparently dementia. I don’t know if it has been proven to be a contributing factor yet, but I think it’s pretty clear that getting vaccinated is the right thing to do.
seems its not even correlation isnt equal causation. shingles can be dangerous if it causes meningitis, or gastrointestinal activation. when i had shingles at 20, although the blisters(now permanent scrs with nerve damage) apparently also traveled to the spine which cause it to stiffin up, it lasted only a week. dint have other meningitis symptoms though. its much more likely if your 50+ though.
When I was a kid the chicken pox vaccine was still pretty new. I remember hearing parents talking about it, and remember a few of them saying that it was only X% effective (don’t remember what that percentage was off the top of my head)
At the time, it seemed like every other children’s show had a chicken pox episode with one or more of the characters getting chicken pox, their parents talking about having a chicken pox party to get their kids infected, etc. it kind of seemed like it was almost inevitable that either I’d get chicken pox at some point or a lot of kids I knew would.
But I, and most of the kids I went to school with, did end up getting the vaccine, and very few kids in my school ever ended up with chickenpox. I can probably just about count the number of cases on my fingers in a school with hundreds of kids.
So vaccines work.
Funny story though, at one point in my childhood I got sick and ended up getting a prescription for amoxicillin. I started breaking out in sort of a rash/hives, and for a while they thought it might be chicken pox.
Turns out I’m actually just allergic to amoxicillin.
And then to make things even weirder, my sister gets a similar reaction from the azithromycin I usually got instead.
Just had shingles. Do not recommend. Get vaccinated.
had at 20, although it was only shocks and pain a small rash. it did have permanent damage though, but its not severe like a huge rash. numb right where the scars are, and hypersensitive right outside the rash(this was more than 10years ago), and spinal stiffness. i did get phn for a couple years though. (the nerve damage is permanent though,outside of the phn)
I had a shingles outbreak a few years ago during a time in my life that I had extremely high stress. It covered half my chest and was too painful to touch to do anything other than lay or sit still. Putting on a shirt felt like getting sliced by razor blades, and something like putting on ba seatbelt felt like being stabbed. Would not recommend.
Shingles vaccines are already recommended for older adults (typically those over 50) and people with weakened immune systems.
If you fit these categories, definitely get that vaccine. Shingles sucks so bad on its own, without even taking into consideration this possible dementia link.
Does anyone know why you shouldn’t get it earlier than 50 unless you’re immunocompromised? Is it just because it hasn’t been tested in other age groups? I tried looking up an answer, but that’s all I found.
yes it hasnt been approved for anyone under 50+, hence not tested for . people who get it under 50, you wouldnt know the benefits of it if you get shingles later on. i like how the sub for shingles, people are reporting shingles frequently, i would probably say they are having some other reaction or hsv1 rather than multiple infections. thier symptoms just dont follow those of shingles.(that sub has quite alot of misinformation about shingles)
also insurance doesnt cover it, because it hasnt been tested for <50yos, so its quite expensive, besides the resistance from the insurance, pharmacies and doctors might refuse it too for the same reasons.
most likely its shingles induced meningitis or encephalitis that would cause dementia like symptoms.
shingles is much more severe the older you are, or immunocompromised. eventhough my shingles rash was quite small, because of the severe stress it seems to cause more damage than normal, it reached my spine, plus caused stiffness and backpain. and the scars, and nerve damage.(it went through the whole blistering and bursting stage, since i dint get to a doctor in time.
Ow, that sounds awful! I’m sorry you went through that.
I think I get it now. It hasn’t been tested for under 50 year olds because there’s no real reason to get vaccinated if you have a healthy immune system, right? You just wouldn’t get it.
I was wondering if there was some known harm caused by the dead virus vaccine, but it doesn’t seem like it. Like, if you get shingles, it’s because the virus is already hanging out in you, so it’s not like measles where the virus is introduced for the first time to prep your system. Prepping for shingles doesn’t make sense unless there’s a reason to think your immune system will fail. The virus is already there.
I think it helps me get it to think of the group who gets vaccinated as entirely people who are immunocompromised. 50+ is just a category inherently part of that group. If I got vaccinated now, it would serve zero purpose.
Thanks for your answer! I hope you never have to deal with shingles ever again.
