Stress and Shingles

Had a bad night last night. The Endone didn't seem enough. Surprising as it's morphine based, and I've never had it before. It's not like I'd be used to it. Tossed and turned all night, waking up constantly. My lower back was aching badly, along with both legs. And the rash on my left leg was stinging the worst it has yet just at the slightest touch. Even just turning over in bed I had to go slowly and carefully. 

Had to go to the doctor today to get another prescription for Endone as the hospital only gave me enough for one week. They did say that I'd have to go to the GP during the week as one weeks supply wouldn't be enough. They can only prescribe a certain amount at the hospital when you're leaving it, and the rest you have to see a GP. My GP is still on leave until next week, so I went to the same one I saw last week, who diagnosed it then as an allergic reaction. 

He read the letter that Emergency wrote for him to read. Gave me the Endone, but thought the hospital had made a wrong decision. I thought that was a bit strange. I wasn't going to argue with him though, just told him I was supposed to get another 20 tablets as written in the letter. There were 2 doctors in Emergency that both diagnosed Shingles, as well as a nurse in there that took my blood pressure, as well as the triage nurse who saw me first. I also researched it online and it looked exactly like the images there.

I found out online that you can only get it after having chicken pox, with the chicken pox virus laying dormant in your body after getting better from it.

  When a person catches chicken pox, this virus just lies inactive and undeveloped in your skin cells, for years, even decades. Once your immune system is at its weakest, because of age, another disease and even stress that gets out of control, your immune system cannot hold back this dormant virus, and it becomes active again, causing infection, rashes and an itchy, burning sensation on the area of the skin where the virus laid dormant for years.
Link

I'm wondering just how much of a roll the recent stress of having to go to court and all, has had in this Shingles thing. It's not like my immune system is fucked with my CD4 count so high. It just makes me even more angry at those so called friends who didn't consider my condition at all, and defended the guy who sent the death threat. I mean FFS, HIV+, Post Traumatic Stress, barely avoiding suicide, and years of lurching from one crisis to the next. These people knew all this and didn't give a fuck. 

I think losing those friends (even though it was me who broke the friendship) was way more stressful than taking a violent fuckwit to court. It hurt a lot. People who I thought cared about me didn't at all. They only cared about themselves. Yes it's been the best decision I've made for a while getting rid of them, and I don't regret it in the slightest. But it still hurt.