I'm retired from racing. Really.

You rule!

yikes, what?!

sorry. feel better soon, and maybe skip the 10 miler tomorrow. :)

Hope you get some relief soon. As for tips, as Riley. He had them twice in a matter of months as I recall.

Ah, shingles. Yeah for some reason shingles are somewhat common in younger (30s-40s) adults who are otherwise very healthy, but exercise a lot.

I got them on my face and eye, not fun. The antiviral works quite well and pretty quickly. So hopefully you're taking one. Rest up and it'll go away soon. Good luck!

Riley, are you saying the exercise causes/contributes to it?

I am taking the anti-viral.

Q: Is exercising with it just stupid? Does it cause harm or slow healing, from what you see? Or is it just painful but doesn't really matter from a recovery timeframe?

Well, I'm no expert. But from what I've been told, those who exercise a lot obviously can wear their bodies down. The virus is from when you got chicken pox as a child and it never leaves your body. It just goes dormant. But when you wear your body down as we runners often do, it can create an opportunity for the virus to re-emerge.

As for exercising with it, I think I took 1-2 days off, but I had a marathon a week later, so I didn't want to take too much time off. I still had some scabbing on my face for the marathon, yet ran a PR.

I am certain the pain is worse for you with it on your back etc. The shingles on my face were painful, but I've heard stories of people wanting to kill themselves with it on their backs, and my pain was no where near that level. On the face you mostly have to stop it before it goes in your eye, as it can cause blindness. So I was mostly worried about that.

I'd rest if I were you and let the antiviral start doing its thing for a day or two and then give it a whirl.

Thanks for the info. I'd so much prefer my face, as long as it didn't impact vision (that's the ultimate worst case). My clothes and movement and sitting/laying are killing me- it wraps the whole left side from back to belly button just at belt level, and then goes down from there (inner thigh- not fun), so wearing any clothes or sitting/laying down is excruciating.

I can't believe this may last 3-5 weeks, or longer. My aunt's nerve pain lasted 4 months. This is not going to be fun, but at least I know people like you have survived it.