Katie Ochoa was just 28 when she got the telltale shingles rash. 'I called the doctor's office and said, 'I think I have shingles.' They laughed and said, 'You don't have shingles.' As soon as I pulled up my shirt they were like, 'Wow, this is shingles.''
"The pain was emanating from inside my leg and radiating up to the surface," she says."It was like fire ants inside my body, on my nerves."Shelton was 50 years old. At the time, she was considered 10 years too young to get the"I had really not paid any attention tountil I found out I had it. Everything I read said it affected older people, so that was a surprise," she says.
Over the last 6 decades, there has been a steady uptick in the number of shingles cases in the United States -- even among younger adults. A 2016 study found that rates of shingles have been climbing since the mid-1940s in all age groups. From 1945 to 1949, 0.76 out of every 1,000 people got the disease. Between 2000 and 2007, that number rose to 3.15 people per 1,000.
"If what Hope-Simpson said was correct, that opens the possibility that if you reduce exposures to kids with chickenpox, it might mean that kids are getting less of this exogenous [external] boosting. That might put them at greater risk for shingles, and at a younger age," says Rafael Harpaz, MD, a CDC medical epidemiologist who has been studying the shingles virus for 15 years.
Another possibility is that higher rates of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease may have contributed to shingles risk. Again, Harpaz and his team studied this, and"We basically found that if there was any added risk [of shingles] in those groups, it was very minimal, and it was not enough to explain why shingles rates are rising," he says.
After so much research, are we any closer to knowing what's behind the rise in shingles cases?"In short, no," says Harpaz."It remains a puzzle."Shingles is more than an unsightly rash. After the bumps clear, you can have a long-term, painful complication called postherpetic neuralgia."This pain can be debilitating in some people," says Montero."Even a light sensation, like a sheet rubbing against the skin, can cause a lot of pain.
Getting vaccinated can dramatically lower your odds of having shingles and its complications. The new vaccine, Shingrix, is more than 90% effective at preventing the disease. It's recommended for people ages 50 and up. You'll need two doses, given 2 to 6 months apart, to be fully protected.
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