Info and opinion on new shingles vaccine?

You don't need to worry about shingles unless your immune system is compromised or if you are elderly. Reasons you might have a compromised immune system: AIDS, you had an organ transplant, you have a history of leukemia. Reasons you are on fluther and elderly: you are a very very special person.

On the other hand, since it looks like you have had a history of breast cancer, judging from your other question, I would ask yourself two questions: What does my doctor think? and Am I the kind of person who likes to try out new medical advances or wait a few years to make sure they're okay. I'm definitely in the second category, and would wait 5 or 10 years before I went for an expensive vaccine that doesn't work for a big minority of the time.

Elderly is now a relative term; let me just say that I fall in the higher risk category. A buddy of mine just sent my college listserv a pic of her shingles..gruesome, painful, enduring...there is an advisory out for all - how shall I put this - senior citizens to think very hard about getting the vaccine..Perforce, as one ages, so does the immune system (w/o the severe isues of HIV/AIDS, organ transplants or blood cancer. Chemo for any cancer doesn't treat the immune system kindly.

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FDA says that the serum is effective in prevention (not cure) for about 50% of aging population. Most of us have the dormant chick. pox virus hanging around in blood stream or wherever...so it is a crap shoot. That is what our Docs are saying. They tend to waffle more in this litigious era And 10 years from now I might have lost my marbles..or at least some of them.

I would check with your doctor of course, but I'd say it's probably a reasonable idea. You don't need to be severely immunocompromised to get shingles; stress and aging make it more likely and it's certainly not pleasant. There's also a possibility of longer-lasting pain and complications from infection. I think vaccinations in general are awesome, provided there aren't any specific risks - they give a little help to the body's own amazing immune system so that it can do a better job of protecting you. I don't know, I think that's cool...

I plan to get the vaccine. Having a bout with shingles at the age of “just” 50, I definitely will go a long way to avoid a repeat— until then I wouldn’t have considered myself a candidate for the vaccine, but apparently a bad bout of flu combined with a heavy work schedule left me vulnerable and the episode started while I was a speaker at a conference standing on stage. It was like fire ants running up and down my spine and I couldn’t figure out what was happening! It lasted several days (especially since I was unable to get to a doctor for any anti-viral meds)—but was eventually diagnosed as a “classic” case of shingles.