This is a thread for ILXORS IN THEIR 50's

Seeing Diane Feinstein in the wheelchair was enough for me to message my GP about it

cdc = America. nhs says 65+

Thraed of Shingrix

ahh, thats what i thought i remembered.
i.e. 65+ for us in the UK.

The shingles vaccine doesn't guarantee that you won't get shingles. But this vaccine will likely reduce the course and severity of the disease. And it will likely lower your risk of postherpetic neuralgia. Studies suggest that Shingrix offers protection against shingles for more than five years.

FIVE years?? I thought it was good for life :-(

shingles thread... looks like some longer term study data was published last year. one study saying protection lasts at least 7 years and another study saying up to 10 years.

My aunt (79) has had it for years. It's been agony. The shot feels like a punch in the arm, well worth it.

If you had chickenpox as a kid is shingles off the cards or no?

I . . . don't know. I definitely had chickenpox as a kid but they still said I should get the shot.

Oh wait I thought shingles was if you had nevr had pox as a kid. but it seems its if you DID :/ ugh!

Yeah, it's some kind of re-emergence of prior infection.

If you didn't have chickenpox as a kid, then you need that vaccine.

I remember Mick Jones (of the Clash, not Foreigner) got chickenpox back in the 80s, it nearly did him in.

I recall it being a miserable time as a kid. I had to have baths in this foul smelling pine wash. I had the mumps too, and whooping cough. Man the 70s were another time.

Now I'm thinking I should get this shingrix thing, though its only free for over 65s here.

If you get chickenpox, the virus that causes it hides from your immune system in your spine. Shingles is what you get when that virus reactivates.

My aunt breaks down in tears when she talks about how painful shingles has been. Probably worth the cost of the shot.

As explained on this cdc webpage (https://www.cdc.gov/shingles/about/transmission.html) shingles is caused by the reactivation or re-emergence of the varicella-zoster (chicken pox) virus that has lain dormant in someone who had the chickenpox early in life.

If you didn't have chickenpox as a kid, then you need that vaccine.

Yes! Apparently, getting chicken pox for the first time as an adult is often a far more serious disease than going through it as a child. Among other things, it can induce sterility in adult males. I'm sure there are horror stories on the web about adult chicken pox that match the many shingles horror stories.

Almost died in 1989 when he contracted chicken pox from his then four-year-old daughter Lauren. He went into a coma and spent months recuperating.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0428851/trivia/

Shingles suuuuucked. I had it a few years ago.

i expect it’s upthread but a colleague who got it in his eye/facial nerves with complications was very clear upon return from hospitalization/recovery: “do. not. fuck. with. this. pay whatever. do anything to avoid it.”

something like 99% of folks have had chicken pox, even if they don't remember it

But if you get shingles, you're actively contagious to the 1% that have never had it, including people with compromised immune systems

I feel better now, but earlier today I was forced to drink two hot toddies just to stave off the vaxx side effects

People in their late 30s and early 40s are apparently more at risk for shingles currently. The thinking is they had chickenpox just as the varicella vaccine was made available, so have experienced fewer environmental exposures due to younger people not having chickenpox due to having been vaccinated. So their immune systems aren't reminded enough to fight the virus and shingles hits earlier. My son was unfortunately in this cohort and got shingles up and down one leg a few years ago at 37.

I had shingles this year at 43. It was terrible, my shoulder ached for like a month.

how dare you bring tales of shoulder aches into the 50s thread

I’m just preparing myself.

I got shingles when I was 29/30 about 20 years ago.

Hardest job I ever had was hauling roof shingles up a ladder during the summer.

ooh srsly respect. when i think of horrible terrifying stupefyingly dangerous jobs, roofer is about tops, and yes it is shingles adjacent

I got shingles on my honeymoon (ages 28). Way to start married life. I still have the scars and I hate the thought it's just lying about dormant waiting to come back and get me again. Get the shot if offered.

I got shingles vax #2 last week and had 24 hours of bizarre non-nausea nausea, the shakes from feeling chilled, and a complete loss of appetite. Just sitting around wondering “am I going to heave from being sick or not? I can’t tell…”

Anyway, I still remember getting chicken pox on my 17th birthday and recalling that now was plenty of motivation to ride it out. The next day I was fine. Get the vax and give yrself some recovery time.

Yeah, I got #2 on tuesday and I was a fifty-something wreck... not so much nausea, but just every other flu-like symptom known to man

I feel fine today

formally joining this thread in 4 days

It's not so bad.

once you're over the shingles

just got invited to an upcoming celebration of my high school basketball team's championship. that is, the 35th anniversary of it

i tend not to think about such things, but ffs that's a pretty high number

At some point it just becomes numbers on the odometer that you can just shrug off. My high school graduating class just had it's 40th anniversary (I didn't go)

Mine too! I didn't either. If I make it as far as the 50th, I'll probably go.

Never been to any of mine. It'd be a "fuck all y'all" Romy & Michelle scenario if I ever did.

I hit 50 a couple weeks ago and I felt fine. I got my mid-life crisis at 35.

I missed my 25th college reunion due to Covid but really wanna do my 30th. I actually have self-confidence now!

My best years are ahead of me! *instantly expires from coronary”*

I am in very distant touch with a couple of my high school classmates. Not surprisingly, several of us ended up at the state's largest university, but we all pretty much scattered afterwards.

i am at week 8+ as primary actor in clearing, cleaning, and organizing the real and personal ppty of a suddenly deceased friend (age 58). i’m not even his pr, but i’m trying to help everything move.

direct grief of loss was relatively brief. but the overall psych burden has surprising breadth.

choose your pr wisely, make sure they have the key information and access to the things they will need to keep things orderly and manageable. also if you live solo, CLEAN THAT FUCKING SHIT UP DON’T BE A FILTHY SWINE.

I will as soon as my back stops hurting, I promise.

:)

I get perhaps too much contact with my childhood / high school / college friends. Because I live where we grew up, I get visited a lot.

Moreso now that their parents are aging and dying. They come to to look after their parents (or, increasingly, bury their parents) and they call and want me to hang or go get a drink or play some music.

A reunion for me is unnecessary because I can barely get away from my school friends.

I love them and we have a lot of shared history, so I have a hard time saying no. Especially if it's someone who just flew into town for a few days. sometimes I am just not in the mood.

Most of us who could fled Pueblo, Colorado right after graduation.

I just spent a weekend in Vegas with one of my college buddies who's 23 days younger than me.

Had a good time, but at one point, leaning over a dinette table in his suite, I was all, "Man, we shoulda done this years ago when we were younger... like when we were in our 40s."

It is so strange to be hanging out with peers who are grandparents, older than many U.S. senators, with gray hair and baggy eyes.

Because I look in the mirror and see Young Indiana Jones wink and point at me. I definitely understand why there are so many old guys my age running around, acting like assholes. We haven't gotten the memo yet!

Know why middle-aged dudes wear their pants with their waists practically six inches above their belly button? It's because somehow our legs have shrunk, but we refuse to acknowledge this or buy new pants.

I am okay with looking middle-aged, and the prospect of grandparents, but the reaper's scythe hitting my peers' parents is bumming me out. I knew it would happen, of course. But it seems to be accelerating lately.

When my own personal parents were distracted, I was raised by a village. So those moms who were surrogate moms to the whole neighborhood were important in my upbringing, and we just lost another one yesterday.

Meanwhile my bio father (who is a major penis) appears to be immortal.

First of all, I am not looking forward to my parents dying.

But secondly, they're in their mid-70s. I go back and forth thinking, Are we going to wrap this up soon, or drag it out for another 15 years?

The waiting is worse on their part, sure, but whenever my step-dad's name makes a rare appearance on the Caller ID, I'm like is this going to be about Christmas or is it on?