Don't go by me...but...

Ever try to cure your own ills?
I don’t mean a cold or a fever, since we all know basically how to do that, chicken soup, rest and aspirin.

No, what I am speaking of is this thing I have called, Multiple Sclerosis. I just found out from a Newsletter styled brochure that there appears to be a connection between the chickenpox virus causing shingles and MS, which I did have both.
Chickenpox when merely a child when no inoculations were around back in the 1950’s, most of us did get it then.
And shingles just after 9/11 when I was fifty-one.
At the time I thought I had a flea irritation with all of our pets at that time, but they had none, fleas that is. And so I went to the doctor and was diagnosed immediately with shingles and put on anti-viral medication that worked and until about a week ago I thought nothing about it.

Oh that’s not entirely true since many a local pharmacy is offering the now available inoculation shot against getting it, shingles, for a whopping $224, pneumonia $79, without insurance, but with, I don’t really know. Hubby forgot to ask since I was hoping that he would take advantage of them, but he could probably go to his doctor and get it all covered by his great insurance policy!
Any-who, what this Remedy MD, healthcommunities.com sheet said was that, “Viruses One outbreak of shingles a painful rash caused by the chickenpox virus, can nearly quadruple the risk of developing MS the following year, finds Journal of Infectious Diseases study. Plus exposure to the Epstein-Barr virus, which is responsible for mononucleosis, may boost the risk.”
No wonder I was screwed I had mono in college after I came back from that European adventure of visiting all those Couture Houses in all those countries, seven in all, back in 1969, as part of my educational program for LIM, but I drank the wrong bottled water in Lisbon, our last stop before flying home and I had dysentery on that flight all the way home, talk about memorable experiences. But I was not alone many of us did, and our chaperones gave us Paregoric, at the time illegal in the states but not in Europe, to help us deal with horrors of the effects of our misdeeds, choosing the wrong beverage!

I missed weeks of school that time and never did fully recover, feeling always slightly weak for ages/years.

Sadly, when I read all that, my worry momma alarm went off! Both our sons had, had chickenpox since even by 1982 and 1983, oddly enough they had them a year apart nearly to the day, weird, there were still not inoculations at that time either to prevent chickenpox, which we never realized could be a sleeper future danger to all who went through it…Measles were known to be harmful for expectant Moms to be near, thought and proven, to be a cause of mental retardation and Down’s Syndrome, but chickenpox was considered no big deal!
To think now that at their ages of thirty-six and forty our boys, that the unthinkable could happen I called number one son and asked him to get the shingles shot and why and he assured me he would and I also asked him to contact his brother who as you know won’t speak to me or Hubby.
Unfortunately, the younger son also had mono in high school, a double whammy!
Oh worries!
Family history also supposedly plays a big role in getting it too; well I was the fourth one in my family to get MS…not good for my offspring either!

Now don’t get me wrong many people grew up in the 1950’s and never ever had chickenpox or had it and did not get shingles or MS, but it is a very interesting concept and hits too close to my own reality and home. Although, many with those above mentioned issues too have not gotten Multiple Sclerosis, and so as many things are in life it is a crap shoot, but I always think that it is better to err on the side of caution, hmm?

I did Google other correlations between the two that is Shingle/ MS connection and other sites were not as definite and more definite and some fairly vague: Below are only two but there are many more:
http://www.ehow.com/about_5542231_multiple-sclerosis-shingles-vaccine-cure.html
http://www.cjns.org/26febtoc/herpes.html

I am just working those electric brainwaves in thought and deeds, got to keep checking that they are functioning…
Interesting information that pertains to ones self, you gotta admit at times can be heart stopping or give you an AHA moment in time… it’s how you use what you find out that matters and sharing has been my way, over these last few years.
I am sure that I am one of the last in the Multiple Sclerosis family on Facebook and in the world that didn’t know about the connection that may have more recent research disproving this.

The odd part and even Hubby can vouch for this, that not one doctor, or forms or neurologist ever asked me if I had, had shingles…how truly odd.
All I can say is the next time you are in a doctor’s office filling out one of those endless pages all about you, look for the shingles question, I don’t believe you will find it.
I think at the very least it should be included in your medical history since it appears to be a somewhat of a missing link in some cases…hmm?

On that suggestion of who knows what, allow me to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and ask you to kindly count all your blessings and share all those overages and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?