I had shingles a couple years back, cant remember exactly what if anything they gave me for it, all I know is that it hurt badly( I'll get into what it felt like in a bit) and I remember using lots of Calamine lotion to help with the itch and help dry it up. I believe mine was triggerred more so from stress and the docs said the same thing as my health was quite fine for a good while before that and I wasn't on anything that could have triggerred it either. At the time I was going through alot of stress at the job I had and things were really getting to me, then one night I got this itch on my side that just wouldn't go away and it was so intense I couldn't ignore it. First after scratching it just turned to a red area on my side, then through out the night in my sleep I must have scratched myself to bits and by morning it was little tiny blister looking things forming, I thought it was some sort of bite. I went to work and it was really bothering me then I lifted up my shirt to show a co-worker who I confided in and she said I should go to the doctor 'cause it looked like shingles that a relative of hers had at one time, and she knew the stress was getting to me because she was the one who I would vent my frustrations to. Sure enough the doc said it was shingles and he made me stay home for some time because he said I needed to relax and also that people that never had Chicken pox before could get chicken pox from me while I had it.
Anyway just to let you know what my understanding of it is, it is basically the chicken pox virus becomming active in the body again. What happens is that when someone gets Chicken pox the virus remains "dormant" in the spine(central nervous system). Most common triggers are stress and weakened immune system. Once it is "triggered" unlike chicken pox which can cover the body it only travels on nerve endings so most common places for it to show up is on the sides, back, chest(I think), head and face. It is rearer but very dangerous for it to come on the head and face as that indicates that it can go to the eyes and cause blindness and I think I've also heard in rare cases it can cause problems for the brain and sometimes even lead to death, but again that's very rare. Now for what it felt like....because it travels on the nerve endings you can immagine, shooting striking pains going from the blisters toward the spine and very sensitive, if it was touched I could feel the shooting pains travel along the nerves, nerves that before I had no clue were even there. Mine came on my side, only one side too thank God! At first it wasn't that bad pain wise, but as blisters became full blown instead of tiny things that you'd really have to look good to see that they were blisters, then the pain came!
Anyway hope I helped and my advise is stay home and relax, use calamine lotion or something that'll help dry up the blisters and relieve the itch because when they get to the stage that they hurt the last thing you want to do is accidentally scratch it! And if you notice anything coming up on the face or head get to a doctor quick!
