A Vaccine for Shingles?

Today I saw a sign in front of Walgreens that they are offering shingles vaccines.  Now if there is anything that says how ridiculous this whole vaccine issue has become, this is it.  The reason? Shingles is NOT an infectious disease that spreads from person to person like flu.

The virus that causes shingles is the same that causes chicken pox.  Chicken pox is the primary manifestation of exposure to the Varicella virus.  This virus is in the Herpes virus family.  A characteristic of Herpes viruses is that once you have them, you always have them.  You get a big infection, then the virus goes dormant in the the nerve roots of the spinal cord.  It can be dormant forever without ever showing itself again.  But every now and then it may manifest, like a cold sore which is a Herpes virus.  As I said, Chicken pox is the primary manifestation of the Varicella virus.  When you get over chicken pox, the virus did not go away, it went dormant in your nerve system.  Then 50 or 60 years later, you get stressed out and the virus grows again and you have shingles!  Shingles is adult chicken pox!  You could also say it is a form of a "cold sore" that shows up on the trunk of the body.  The thing is, and this is very important: YOU HAVE TO HAVE HAD CHICKEN POX TO GET SHINGLES LATER!  If you never had chicken pox, then you can't get shingles until you get chicken pox.  Therefore, getting a shingles vaccine is a waste of time, let alone dangerous as all vaccines are!

But, you may say, then why not make sure all kids get the chicken pox vaccine? Because the vaccine does not work and is very, very dangerous.  From 1995 to 1999, there were 10,000 reports of adverse reactions to this vaccine, all involving nerve damage.  These reactions include: encepahlits (brain inflammation), inflammation of the spinal cord, Guillian-Barre syndrome, Bell's Palsy, Cerebellar Ataxia (sudden loss of co-ordinated movement and speech), seizures, and Paresthesia.  Is this a chance you would want to take with your kids? Or yourself?

Shingles is certainly not a condiiton to wish on anyone, but don't be fooled into thinking that there is a vaccine for it.  There isn't.

Chiropractors are dangerous? Seriously?

My daughter told me at dinner tonight that the husband of one of her employees is scheduled to have back surgery.  Apparently he has been diagnosed with a herniated disc.  So far he has gone through physical therapy and nerve bocks that have not done any good so the only option left is surgery.  He has young children at home and he won't be able to lift them until September!  My daughter asked if he had tried seeing a chiropractor, and the wife said that he did ask his physician and was told that that will only make it worse!

Now, chiropractic is NOT a back pain specialty, it is a total health approach for the body.  However, many studies have been done to show the efficacy of chiropractic care for the treatment of low back pain, and it is, hands down, far superior than anything medicine has to offer.  There are no "side effects" other than the person might just get well.  And in 27 years of practice, not one person in my office has ever been crippled from our care.

So let's see.  This poor man has been suffering for I don't know how long, he has had anesthesia injected directly into his vital nerve system - you know, the one that controls and coordinates the life of the body - and now he is going to have his back opened up with the possibility of paralysis and even death.  He may become crippled from this surgery.  This is rare but I have known it to happen.  He may become addicted to pain drugs, as many do.  And chances are very good that he will have additional surgery because the pain still didn't go away and the surgical area filled up with scar tissue that is choking off the nerves.

You decide.  Who is going to make it worse?