Copyright The Oregonian
Q. I would encourage anyone on the fence about getting the Shingrix vaccine to seriously consider it. My elderly father had the older shingles vaccine but not Shingrix. Several years ago, he had shingles so badly that he was hospitalized twice because the pain was uncontrollable. Due to the shingles, he now has post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN). Although he takes morphine and gabapentin, the daily pain of PHN is almost unbearable. It is so bad that he often cries out loud. His pain management doctor has prescribed other drugs and performed a nerve block, but nothing has helped. He went from being an active man prior to shingles (bowling, volunteering, splitting firewood by hand) to someone who is housebound because of post-herpetic neuralgia. A. What an ordeal! The older version of the shingles vaccine, Zostavax, has been replaced by Shingrix, which is more effective. Not only does it reduce the chance of an episode of shingles, but new research suggests it has other benefits for older people. The study was presented at IDWeek, a conference on infectious diseases. Scientists analyzed health records of more than 174,000 older Americans from more than 100 health care systems. They compared the subsequent health of people who got the Shingrix shot to that of those who got a pneumonia vaccine. After the Shingrix vaccination, people were 50% less likely to get vascular dementia, 27% less likely to have dangerous blood clots and 25% less susceptible to a heart attack or stroke. In addition, they were 21% less likely to die during the follow-up period, which varied from three months to seven years. * * *
