'However bad you think shingles is, it's way worse,' says P.E.I. woman

When Eva O'Hanley developed a sharp pain along her ribs last year, she put off going to the hospital for fear of a long wait at a P.E.I. emergency departments.

The former CBC technician instead visited with a nurse practitioner, who thought the condition might be related to her gallbladder. O'Hanley had her blood drawn for testing before returning home.

But the pain kept getting worse. She applied a heating pad to her ribs, still wary of spending hours in the ER.

"But finally at 1 o'clock in the morning, as I'm curled up in a ball crying, I said I've gotta do something, I can't keep going like this," O'Hanley recently told Island Morning's Laura Chapin.

"I pulled up my shirt and [the triage nurse] said, 'Oh, that's shingles.' I didn't even realize I had a rash before I went to the ER. It was red, but I thought it was red because I'd been putting so much heat on."

Shingles is a viral infection that can trigger a painful rash. It's caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox, which can lie dormant after a person gets the disease.

One in three people aged 50 or older and who have had chickenpox will develop shingles.

P.E.I. was one of the first provinces in the country to offer free shingles vaccines as a publicly funded program for people aged 65 and up. In 2022, the province reduced the age of eligibility for the program to 60.

Island Morning11:25Shingles: Navigating a painful and potentially life-threatening infection

Eva O'Hanley recounts the agony of coming down with shingles, and Dr. Jason Chan explains the causes of the viral infection and some ways to protect yourself against it.

O'Hanley had intended to get the two-dose vaccine before the virus flared up last year.

"I was going to get around to it, I just didn't and I wish I had," she said. "If you're thinking about it at all, just do it. Don't say, 'Oh, I'll get around to it,' because it might be too late."

Island Morning health columnist Dr. Jason Chan said shingles is usually recognizable for its painful rash, which can often develop into a cluster of water blisters. It's characterized by a burning sensation and hypersensitive skin before the rash appears.

The important thing for patients is to get antiviral medication from their doctor or at the hospital within three days of the rash appearing, otherwise the complications can be severe, Chan said.

"The clock starts when the rash starts to appear. You have 72 hours to get treated with an antiviral medication," he said.

"If you get shingles around the eyes you can lose your vision, if it affects the nerves that go into your ears you can go deaf. You can even get meningitis and you can actually die from shinglestooif you're not careful."

'How bad would it have been?'

In O'Hanley's case, despite taking antiviral medication, her condition didn't improve. She took morphine for six to eight weeks after her ER visitsand still feels some lingering side effects of recurring pain to this day.

"I think, 'My God, how bad would it have been if I didn't get the antivirals?' Because it was bad," she said. "However bad you think shingles is, it's way worse."

Chan said O'Hanley's flare-ups are rare and would rank among the more severe cases of shingles, but he'd still like to see people be able to get preventative treatment sooner.

He said the province should lower the age of eligibility for the free vaccines further, to 55 years old. Outside of the provincially funded program, the two-dose vaccine can cost up to $400.

CBCcontacted P.E.I.'s Chief Public Health Office, which stopped short of saying it would lower the age of eligibility.

"Age is the predominant risk factor for the development of shingles and subsequent hospitalization among cases," it said in a statement. "Peak hospitalization rates for shingles risk per case are observed among persons 65 years of age and older."