If you’ve already had shingles, don’t fall for this sales pitch from the CDC

Close to home

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants you to get a shot.

So what else is new, right?

As always, you can count on the CDC to be hyper aggressive when it comes to selling a vaccine.

But this is ridiculous…

The CDC says that everyone over 60 should get a shingles vaccine, EVEN if they’ve already had shingles.

A thousand needles

It was the most painful thing I can remember. I had no idea what it was. It felt like someone was poking needles from the inside of my body out. I couldn’t even get dressed.

When my doctor said it was shingles, I was shocked. I wasn’t even 22 years old!

But if you’ve had chicken pox, you are a prime candidate for shingles — at any age. And if you have a period of extreme stress, you are likely to get an outbreak. And what is more stressful at 22 than a week of final exams in college?

I can tell you that I would do anything to avoid being in that kind of pain again. So now, many years later, should I get the shingles vaccine?

The answer, of course, is, “NO.”

A new shingles vaccine study found that recurrence risk is extremely low. Recurrence rate was just 19 cases per 10,000 shingles patients. For subjects who were unvaccinated, that rate didn’t exactly soar. The rate was just 24 cases per 10,000.

And according to a UCLA analysis, the vaccine prevents shingles in only one out of every 175 people who receive it.

Clearly, if you’ve already had shingles, the value of the vaccine is nil. But at $200 per shot, the CDC recommendation for everyone over 60 is exceedingly valuable for Merck.

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take one simple precaution to avoid a shingles outbreak.

As Dr. Spreen has pointed out before, the shingles virus attacks the nerves. But you can easily protect your nerves with vitamin B-12. Dr. Spreen says that a daily B-12 dose of 500 mcg offers sufficient protection.

Unlike the vaccine, however, B-12 also helps protect your bones and your brain. So even if you’ve already had shingles, this preventive measure is invaluable.

Sources:
“Herpes Zoster Vaccine and the Incidence of Recurrent Herpes Zoster in an Immunocompetent Elderly Population” Journal of Infectious Diseases, Published online ahead of print, 6/4/12, jid.oxfordjournals.org

“Zoster Vaccine Shows No Benefit After a Shingles Episode” Yael Waknine, Medscape, 6/7/12, medscape.com