Magical Recovery from Shingles on My Face

I felt as if my one side of my face was on fire – it was shingles. It’s also called herpes zoster – but people assume this herpes to be something else. So anyways, how did I recover from it without a scar and what is shingles? Here’s my recovery story…

In 2005 life was tossing me around through crazy turmoil. I’d moved from London to Mumbai and the changes and challenges were plenty.

Stress is known to weaken the immune system and it’s no surprise that during that phase of my life, my already weak immune system was weakened further by my mental health – especially because of my anger.

In case you wish to know how I’ve worked on my anger, best to check this transcript of my podcast – I explain the techniques I follow:

• The Art of Getting Angry

So, it was no surprise that with my health history, I was hit with a sudden and painful condition – shingles, also known as herpes zoster.

Please remember: I am not a medical professional, I am a patient sharing her experiences. Please seek a medical professional for more information and/or for your personal case.

What is Shingles / Herpes Zoster?

To put it simply, shingles is a viral infection that causes an extremely painful blister rash. It happens to those who have had chickenpox before – but just because you’ve had chickenpox does not mean you will definitely get shingles too.

Mayo Clinic says:

“After you’ve had chickenpox, the virus lies inactive in nerve tissue near your spinal cord and brain. Years later, the virus may reactivate as shingles.”

Shingles, like I said earlier, is extremely painful. For me, I got shingles on the right side of my face – more so on the right eye. The tiny hundreds of blisters were horrendously painful, it felt like my face was on fire and I couldn’t touch it at all!

My mum looked at it and knew what it was – she had seen it before on her brother.

The dermatologist looked at it and confirmed the assumption we had, it was shingles. She gave me some ointment but also said that it’ll be very tough for me to apply this because shingles are extremely painful to touch, plus it was also on my eye-lid where the skin is thinner so that’ll make matters more painful.

She asked me to see her after two weeks once the blisters go into an inactive phase so that we could do something to rescue the severely damaged skin.

I couldn’t even cry from the pain because the tears would sting the skin. It was unbearable.

Read here for:

• Endometriosis and Adenomyosis Natural Pain Relief – My Journey
• Podcast Ep 27: Is Being “Okay” Enough?

How I Overcame Shingles / Herpes Zoster

I went home, my mum called her brother and told him what happened. He spoke to me and gave me advice that changed the course of my treatment. And more so, changed how I was going to mentally tackle this condition.

My uncle had shingles on his face too – over 20 years before me, at that time the hospital doctor punctured his shingle blister-rash leaving permanent scars! I cannot even imagine how painful that would have been. 🙁

He advised me three things – advice which I have used over the last 15 years for all my conditions (where applicable, obviously):

1. Do not touch it and do not let anyone else touch it.
2. Do not look at it.
3. It’s going to hurt like hell for a while, but breathe slowly, keep the mind calm and try relaxing yourself. Don’t forget to eat well, rest, keep your fluids up, listen to music – do what you can to not feel agitated.

I followed what he said to a tee!

Family would come visit and it’s in their eyes I saw discomfort and fear. Because of them I would realise badly damaged my face was, how they didn’t look very hopeful.

Remember, I wasn’t looking in the mirror and honestly, I was in such crazy pain that more than how I looked I wanted to be pain-free. I cannot explain the level of pain I was experiencing. Eating, talking, a small smile was all painful, but you know what was the worst? Blinking. Each blink was stabbing.

But I stayed as calm as possible. I did what made me comfortable. I let my stresses go and told myself that this is the sort of crap stress can do and I’m not going to let stress take over my life again just for my body to react like this.

Well… umm.. not that stress haven’t taken over since, but I let go of things much quicker than I was able to in that 2005 life-phase.

Okay now back to shingles…

What Happened to My Shingles After Two Weeks?

Ten days into me being calm, the pain started to reduce, the blisters began to shrink and become lighter. Things were looking up for me.

Day 14, I went back to the dermatologist who now was in utter shock to see me – why? Because, there was not one mark in sight!

It was all gone – nothing for her to treat.

She wanted to know what I did, what I applied and whether I tried some home remedy. I told her all I did was follow my uncle’s advice.

I did not touch it, see it and I did my best to relax.

She regretted not having taken a picture of how extensive the shingles were just to show me and people like me how sometimes, not doing anything and letting a condition take its course with a calm mind is all that we need.

I did have facial tenderness which took another month to go plus the fatigue, as I had fever throughout the two weeks too.

This was obviously my experience with shingles and many have to suffer for a very long time and they may not have as a successful case as mine because we’re all different and especially in this case, stress was my trigger. I worked on that.

I know what I experienced was nothing short of a miracle. An experience that taught me the value of calm.

Read here for:

• How I Built Confidence, One Breakfast at a Time
• 7+ Things I Learnt From Endometriosis
• Blogging When You Don’t Like Writing [and Have a Chronic Illness!]

Before I end… I want to share why I chose to refer to shingles as shingles and not herpes zoster.

The Prejudice Against Herpes Zoster

Herpes zoster is NOT the same as genital herpes which is a sexually transmitted disease. Like mentioned earlier, herpes zoster is a viral infection that occurs only if you’ve had chickenpox.

So the mention of herpes zoster raises eyebrows – unnecessarily.

And even if it was genital herpes why do we have a prejudice against any condition any way?!

Which is why, I will leave you with two thoughts:

1. Pay attention to the importance of a healthy mindset when facing any issue.
2. Don’t judge anyone especially on the basis of their medical condition or disability and certainly not by the name of the condition!

Thank you for reading!

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I have a podcast too. You can check them out here along with their transcripts or if you don’t wanna read them then they’re available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts too.

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Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. I am a patient and have created this platform to share my experiences. This is all purely informative and in no way am I providing medical advice. Please consult a medical professional.