It was kinda funny having acquired a lot of medical knowledge in my whole lifetime and made myself paranoid about a certain situation or illness making me diagnosed myself for a certain disorder of disease. This just happened to me recently and I freaked out.
I woke up last Sunday with a small pimple underneath my right breast and a slight pain around my right torso radiating from my back to front.
I felt like some little bubbles intermittently popped on the skin of my affected trunk. It was extremely excruciating and caused a wavelike pin-pricked pain sensations on that side. I couldn't even bend my back that well. It was a very aweful position to be with.
Then the next day, I noticed some red-raised-rash with tiny-and-grainy-fluid-filled vesicles. I was so alarmed because it was only situated on the front and back of the right side of my torso situated along the nipple line looking like a stripe line across the mid-section of my chest. It was so red, tender, warm, and extremely painful but never itchy initially.
The pain was nagging me so much. It was so debilitating and disabling. It was even constant and making my life a lot miserable. I was moving my body as a one unit acting like a battery-operated robot. It was an aweful feeling and difficult to look at.
I had a very bad feeling about this. It was so alarming, too, so I grabbed my iPhone, punched the Wikipedia application and typed the word shingles then read the literature about Herpes Zoster commonly called "shingles".
Wikipedia says: "Herpes Zoster or Shingles is a viral disease characterized by a painful skin rash with blisters in a limited area on one side of the body, often in a stripe.
The initial infection with varicella zoster virus (VZV) causes the acute illness chickenpox, and generally occurs in children and young people. Once an episode of chickenpox has resolved, the virus is not eliminated from the body but can go on to cause shingles - an illness with very different symptoms - often many years after the initial infection."
Furthermore it says that; "Varicella zoster virus can become latent in the nerve cell bodies and less frequently in non-neuronal satellite cells of dorsal root, cranial nerve or autonomic ganglion, without causing any symptoms.
In an immunocompromised individual, perhaps years or decades after a chickenpox infection, the virus may break out of nerve cell bodies and travel down nerve axons to cause a viral infection of the skin in the region of the nerve.
The virus may spread from one or more ganglia along nerves of an affected segment and infect the corresponding dermatome (an area of skin supplied by one spinal nerve) causing a painful rash. Although the rash usually heals within two to four weeks, some sufferers experienced residual nerve pain for months or years, a condition called postherpetic neuralgia. Exactly how the virus remains latent in the body, and subsequently reactivates is not understood."
The pathophysiology further explains that the causative agent for herpes zoster is varicella zoster virus (VZV), a double-stranded DNA virus related to Herpes simplex virus group. Most people are infected with this virus as children, and suffer from an episode of chickenpox.
The immune system eventually eliminates the virus from most locations, but it remains dormant or latent in the ganglia adjacent to the spinal cord called the dorsal root ganglion or the ganglion semilunare in the base of the skull. Repeated attacks of herpes zoster are rare, and it is extremely rare for patients to suffer more than three recurrences.
Herpes zoster occurs only in people who have had chickenpox, and although it can occur at any age, the majority of sufferers are more than 50 years old. The disease results fom the virus reactivating in a single sensory ganglion.
The virus had not been recovered from human nerve cells by cell culture and the location and structure of the viral DNA is not known. Virus-specific proteins continue to be made by the infected cells during the latent period, so true latency, as opposed to a chronic low-level infection, has not been proven. Although VZV has been detected in autopsies of nervous tissue, there are no methods to find dormant virus in the ganglia in living people.
Unless the immune system is compromised, it suppresses reactivation of the virus and prevents herpes zoster. Why this suppression sometimes fails is poorly understood. but herpes zoster is more likely to occur in people whose immune system is impaired due to aging, immunosuppressive therapy, psychological stress, or other factors.
Upon reactivation, the virus replicates in the nerve cells, and virions are shed from the cells and carried down the axons to the area of the skin served by that ganglion. In the skin, the virus causes local inflammation and blisters. The short and long-term pain caused by herpes zoster comes from the widespread growth of the virus in the infected nerves, which causes inflammation.
The symptoms of herpes zoster cannot be transmitted to another person. However, during the blister phase, direct contact with the rash can spread VZV to a person who has no immunity to the virus. The newly-infected individual may then develop chickenpox, but will not immediately develop shingles.
Until the rash has developed crusts, a person is extremely contagious. A person is also not infectious before blisters appear, or during postherpetic neuralgia (pain after the rash is gone). The person is no longer contagious after the virus has disappeared.
I tried to self-medicate myself with two tablets of over-the-counter Ibuprofen to at least help me taper down the excruciating pain but it didn't even helped. I called my best friend from school and she recommended for me to make a short visit to the emergency room. I was so helpless that time and was still battling whether I should make a visit to ER or not.
I was kinda vehement at first but I can't wait for my doctor's appointment which was scheduled on Tuesday anymore. Plus the fact that the rash had tiny little blisters with fluid-like vesicles and had spread already all over my lower right chest but never crossed the mid-spine. And the excruciating pain had renderred me handicapped so much so I kept thinking it over a lot of times whether I will seek the much needed and immediate medical help.
I debated it several thousand times whether I will drive myself to the emergency room and finally I succumbed and surrendered from brushing it off because in the first place the extreme pain was so inadvertently intolerable anymore. So I finally gave up from over-thinking and debating not to have myself seek an emergent physician's help.
As I drove myself towards Good Samaritan Hospital ER, the pain greatly intensified everytime I moved. I felt like a log trying to protect my right side from not moving, and I was already hyperventilating while I was driving because the pain really kills me.
I was already crying when I came out of the parking lot and walked slowly towards the hospital's entrance trying to eased up my nagging pain and anesthetized myself from the cold breeze of the afternoon Pacific autumn air.
I finally arrived at the hospital's lobby and tried to slowly walked more to the other side of the building where the ER is located.
Then I registered myself and waited for my name to be called. I waited for more than an hour to be triaged to have a decent and profesional doctor's attention.
I was interviewed for my basic profile, the reason of my visit, and chief complaints. Was then placed on isolation because of the contagiousness and infectivity of the virus and attached to the monitor for my initial vital signs.
The physician assessed me and assured me that I will be out there in a jiffy after I can take my initial dose of antiviral drug, which is a gram of Valtrex, and a presciption of my narcotic pain reliever, which is Vicodin, a more potent drug compared to the NSAID drug I took earlier.
After taking my initial antiviral dose, I was given my prescription and home instructions, paid my dues and then I left the ER and passed by Walgreens and have my prescriptions filled.
Then I went home and took my good night's rest. At least by this time the pain was been eased up by the narcotic medicine and I had a good night sleep, although I still have the nagging pain at times but it was better than the previous days.
The next day I woke up and noticed that the rash was even redder with some little pinpointed black dots and some blisters already popped and oozed out spreading wider underneath my right pectorals. My white tank top was been soaked with the serousy drainage and the blisters started to be itchy and warm sticking on my white tank top.
I immediately dabbed the blisters with the clear Caladryl lotion and the Hydrocortisone cream I bought last night along with my presciption and those two worked wonders in easing off the pruritus away. My God..... it was a mixture of nagging excruciating pain and unexplainable itchiness which feels like pruritic-tiny-little-needle-skin-pricks. It was a very miserable feeling all over me which I couldn't even comprehend
I took another dose of the codeine tablet then I fell asleep after that. Aaah...... it was a crazy feeling.
When I woke up after noontime, I took a cold shower and medicated my rashes again with the mixture of the calamine lotion and hydrocortisone cream, then isolated myself in my room for the rest of the day.
I called my school DON to just cancel me for the skills lab tomorrow for the newly admitted Batch 12 and find me a replacement instead so that I can have a more decent rest tomorrow and had more time to recuperate. I still felt I am still contagious so I opted to have an extra day off the next day, which he agreed anyway.
I don't know but this one is always in a bad timing. I already got bored staying at home but I can't do otherwise but to stay at home to contain the virus and get well soon. It already made me crazy......aaah!
No comments:
Post a Comment