I was reading this article on Macleans.com about how the age is getting lower for people getting shingles. LINK. Shingles, if you didn’t know, is a viral disease that is considered the “disease of the elderly”. Old people get it. It’s from the same virus that causes chicken pox. WIKIPEDIA. The article talked about this woman who got shingles on her eye at 24. In the comments, people were saying how they got shingles at age 45 and 34 and whatnot.

I was 15 when I got shingles, last March.
It began with sharp pains in my waist area. The pains were so quick that I didn't even know if I'd just imagined them. These were not like the pain you get when, say, somebody slaps you. Or if someone stabbed you. This was like… something inside. The pain was somewhere deep, coming out. Only it was really, really quick. But I kept on feeling them. It wasn’t a constant thing though. Maybe just twice daily.

Then I started seeing red spots on my lower back. At the time, it didn't worry me; I thought it was just a rash. However, it was really itchy and I decided to tell my mom anyway. She immediately told me it was shingles. We scheduled a doctor's appointment in the next two days.

During that time, the “spots” turned into blisters. Red hot, burning, itchy blisters. And I have to say, they were a thousand times more painful than the average blister you get with tight shoes. The spots had also strayed further across my waist – now they were not only on my lower back, but on the right side and right-front of my waist. Thankfully, only the spots on my back turned to blisters. HOWEVER, it wasn’t just three or four blisters, it was clumps and clumps of blisters overlapping each other. And they were itchy too, but I couldn’t touch them of course. It would hurt. Actually, it hurt even when I wasn’t touching them.

I couldn’t sleep when I had shingles. The shingles-blisters were on my back. I think I slept on my stomach or my left side.
I also kept waking up several times in the night with sudden pains in my back. The same pains I’d started out with, only it came at night now and was more painful.

I went to the doctor to get it checked, and yes it was shingles. I got two ointments that I had to apply day and night. That was really gross, having to spread a thick ointment on to the ugly bumps and blisters. And it hurt too. I can’t remember if I took pills or not. But anyway, I healed.
But I still have the scars from shingles on my back.

I don’t know why I got shingles at 15. There can be so many reasons: stress, low immune system, underlying sickness? I don’t know.

Sigh.. and I went straight back to school too. I didn’t want to miss any lessons. But by going back, I put everyone around me (who’d never gotten chicken pox) at a risk of getting chicken pox. So, um, if you got chicken pox last March, that’d be my fault. BUT YOUR CHICKEN POX IS NOTHING COMPARED TO MY SHINGLES.
Actually I think my chicken pox would be worse than yours too. I had chicken pox inside my lungs and throat when I was small.
BEAT THAT, fool.

But anyway, yeah, that’s my shingles story =P