h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

An interesting article. It's not something that I would have expected someone to write about. Is this from personal experience?

I had shingles at the age of 27, over a Christmas period and was off work for nearly two months. It has left me with an awful numbness and tingling, caused by damaged nerve endings which, years later, are still irritable.

I had shingles last year, on my forehead. I woke up one morning with my left eye closed. It was swollen and looked as though someone had hit me! I was prescribed acyclovar and it cleared up within a week. I was told that I was lucky and had caught it early. It wasn't too hard to miss! I must have been twice lucky as I did not suffer from any of the side-effects with acyclovar that are described in "Shingles". My advice - don't delay, see your GP as soon as possible. My feeling - acyclovar is preferable to the long term effects of untreated shingles as described to me by others.

ive not cought it but a couple of my friends have, they were out of it for several weeks.