So I am 27yr old guy and I have been diagnosed with shingles. Luckily it was caught in the somewhat early stages, but it is still 14days minimum according to the doc. I was told that I need to not stress my system. My question is in regards to what sort of efforts man stress my body. Obviously, no hard sessions, but would longer steady/easier work be out of the picture? Any advice would be helpful.
Thanks
No expert, just my opinion here:
Shingles happens when, for whatever reason, your immune system isn’t working as well as it should. Stress increases demands on your immune system, so you want to decrease stress as much as possible. I would suggest easier sessions, and nothing too strenuous. That probably includes long endurance sessions. It’s just temporary, but you want you immune system 100% so you don’t come down w/ anything else.
Also, do the other things to help your immune system out. Go to bed early, drink fluids, take a multi-vitamin, etc.
Good luck.
Having had shingles, while training…I received the following advice…NO stress, NO excercise – especially early on in treatment. Don’t mess with it. The issue is that if you don’t treat shingles correctly and quickly you can develop lifetime nueropathy. You need to manage the pain early and effectively to avoid damaging the nerves themselves. I still have bouts of the nueropathy 12 years later. When I get really stressed the area affected starts to tingle (its kind of like my own street mood indicator). I have felt it especially when I do a long hard ride and get dehydrated.
as a doc (and someone who had shingles when I finished residency) I would recommend NO exercise the first week
Your body is WAY stressed out - ergo you go shingles
eat right, sleep, watch some bad movies
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Got diagnosed with Shingles about 6 weeks out from IMC last year. The biggest issue was not being able to swim. I did train as usual for the bike and run, but looking back it was not very good training and should have probably pulled the plug on the race. It wasn’t that the shingles physically hurt while I was running and biking (But, it REALLY hurt when I wasn’t doing those things), but my evergy level wasn’t close to where it should have been at that point in training. Also, the medication I was taking is not exactly anything you’d take and then jump on a bike or put the shoes on. So, my doctor told me to do whatever I was comfortable with as far as biking and running and that’s what I did. If you don’t have a race coming up, I’d stick to easy stuff. Good luck!!!
I’m sure you can find lots of better ideas, even on ST, than training with shingles.
I was diagnosed with shingles about a month ago.plan on doing nothing for a while. it will almost certainly get much worse before it gets better.like the doc posted above,eat right and sleep when you can.i’m over it now except that my energy levels are non existent.I would sleep 10 hours a night if I could.in talking to other people,it can take a while to come back to full training too
Thanks to all for the responses. Luckily we caught it early so hopefully it won’t spread too much more. Over the past 24 hours I have noticed a bit more fatigue. I will give light jogging a go just to keep my sanity. This will be a good time for me to work on some foam rolling/stretching/core.
UPDATE: Blisters formed, popped, scabbed and fell off. Now I am left with just the redness, which is getting less sensative by the day. My question is when can I get back in the pool without risk of giving all the little kiddies chicken pox? Any one out there know?
UPDATE: Blisters formed, popped, scabbed and fell off. Now I am left with just the redness, which is getting less sensative by the day. My question is when can I get back in the pool without risk of giving all the little kiddies chicken pox? Any one out there know?
once all have scabbed over you are safe to be in pool
Refer to this thread.