Shingles vaccine?

I was vaccinated for shingles last year but it was a single dose, so it must have been Zostavax. So no dementia protection. :(
 
Hasn't the UK caught up with the 2020s yet?
When I looked into vaccines against shingles here in Denmark, Shingrix appeared to be the only option.
 
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Public Health Message;

If you develop shingles seek medical attention urgently, especially if the rash affects your face or genitals. There are effective treatments that speed recovery and reduce the risk of persisting pain, but they only work if started early. As mentioned developing shingles may be the first sign of a weakened immune system and your doctor may wish to further assess for this.

You should avoid contact with unvaccinated children, pregnant women and those with weakened immune systems whilst the rash persists.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/shingles/
https://www.cdc.gov/shingles/about/index.html
 
dann said:
Hasn't the UK caught up with the 2020s yet?
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A national shingles immunisation programme was introduced into the routine schedule for adults aged 70 years with a phased catch up programme for 71-79 years commencing in September 2013. At the time, the programme vaccinated eligible individuals using a single dose of Zostavax®, a live, attenuated virus derived from the Oka/Merck strain of varicella zoster virus, but at a significantly higher dose than the Varivax® varicella vaccine.
The choice of age group was based on evidence of cost effectiveness of Zostavax®. This age group were considered likely to have the greatest ability to benefit from vaccination (van Hoek et al., 2009) due to:
● the burden of shingles disease within this age group (which increases with age)
● the estimated effectiveness of Zostavax® within this age group (which decreases with age) and
● the duration of protection of Zostavax®
In the first real world assessment of vaccine effectiveness of the UK vaccine programme, effectiveness waned from 69% (95% CI 65-74%) in the first year after vaccination to 45% (95% CI 29-57%) by the third year. (Walker et al 2018)
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In 2019 JCVI recommended Shingrix® should replace Zostavax® in the routine programme and that it should be offered routinely to adults aged 60 years (JCVI, 2019) based on cost effectiveness modelling. The risk of shingles and its complications increase with age and is high in individuals who are immunosuppressed. It is therefore important to ensure individuals are optimally protected at the time of greatest risk.
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The JCVI recommended that Shingrix should replace Zostavax® in the routine programme and that the programme should be offered at 60 years of age. The choice of age group was based on evidence that the greatest number of cases would be prevented by administering the vaccine at this age. This is being rolled out over a period of years starting with those aged 65 and 70.
Those who have been previously eligible will remain eligible until their 80th birthday. Where an individual has turned 80 years of age following their first dose of Shingrix, a second dose should be provided before the individual’s 81st birthday to complete the course.
....
Adults aged 70 to 79 years prior to 1st September 2023 will be eligible for vaccination until their 80th birthday. Those previously eligible for Zostavax® will be offered Zostavax® whilst supplies remain. Zostavax® is given as a single dose course.
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https://assets.publishing.service.g.../Shingles_Green_Book_chapter_28a_20240315.pdf
 
Planigale said:
Public Health Message;

If you develop shingles seek medical attention urgently, especially if the rash affects your face or genitals. There are effective treatments that speed recovery and reduce the risk of persisting pain, but they only work if started early. As mentioned developing shingles may be the first sign of a weakened immune system and your doctor may wish to further assess for this.

You should avoid contact with unvaccinated children, pregnant women and those with weakened immune systems whilst the rash persists.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/shingles/
https://www.cdc.gov/shingles/about/index.html
Click to expand...

Yes, SkepticGinger suggested that, too, but the problem with seeking medical attention urgently is that the pain precedes the rash, sometimes by days, and I didn't even recognize the symptoms when I got it the second time. It started with ear pain, and then the rash (forehead and scalp) followed two days later, which was when I contacted the doctor.
I doubt that doctors will even understand what causes the pain when there's no rash yet.
I did get antivirals anyway.
 
Planigale said:
... vaccine effectiveness of the UK vaccine programme, effectiveness waned from 69% (95% CI 65-74%) in the first year after vaccination to 45% (95% CI 29-57%) by the third year.
(...) Those previously eligible for Zostavax® will be offered Zostavax® whilst supplies remain.
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So bad luck, Pixel42 and SteveAitch. I would consider getting the Shingrix shots as soon as possible if I were you.
 
dann said:
You know that you're supposed to have two shots, don't you?

She may actually have been the one who infected those children and not the other way round:
.
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She and I did get two Shingrix jabs each, in June and October of 2023. And the kids' party was ten days before she started to notice symptoms, eleven days before her rash showed up.
 
New study confirms the old ones:
Study finds strongest evidence yet that shingles vaccine helps cut dementia risk (TheGuardian, April 2, 2025)
Older adults in Wales who had the jab were 20% less likely to be diagnosed with dementia that those not vaccinated
(...)
Pascal Geldsetzer, at Stanford University, said: “For the first time we are able to say much more confidently that the shingles vaccine causes a reduction in dementia risk. If this truly is a causal effect, we have a finding that’s of tremendous importance.”
The researchers took advantage of a vaccination rollout that took place in Wales more than a decade ago. Public health policy dictated that from 1 September 2013, people born on or after 2 September 1933 became eligible for the Zostavax shot, while those who were older missed out.
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Since this is a study of the old and less effective shingles vaccine Zostavax, there is reason to assume that Shingrix will protect even better against dementia, but they still don't know exactly how the vaccine causes this effect, so only time will tell.

A natural experiment on the effect of herpes zoster vaccination on dementia (Nature, April 2, 2025)
By the way, it works better in women than in men, so congratulations, girls!
 
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dann said:
New study confirms the old ones:

Since this is a study of the old and less effective shingles vaccine Zostavax, there is reason to assume that Shingrix will protect even better against dementia, but they still don't know exactly how the vaccine causes this effect, so only time will tell.

A natural experiment on the effect of herpes zoster vaccination on dementia (Nature, April 2, 2025)
By the way, it works better in women than in men, so congratulations, girls!
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Thanks for that.

At 75, I’m pretty much hanging in there cognitively, but more than a few friends and acquaintances about my age have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. It’s worrying.
 
I saw that, and was quite pleased, since I'm off to have my first shingles jab tomorrow morning. They're bringing down the age for that on the NHS; it used to be over 70s, but now it's when you turn 65. If you were between 65 and 70 when they changed the date, you have to wait until you're 70, still.

My other half had shingles a couple of years ago, and it was very painful, so I was happy enough to have the injection just for that; any anti-dementia benefits are a bonus.
 
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Planigale said:
Public Health Message;

If you develop shingles seek medical attention urgently, especially if the rash affects your face or genitals. There are effective treatments that speed recovery and reduce the risk of persisting pain, but they only work if started early. As mentioned developing shingles may be the first sign of a weakened immune system and your doctor may wish to further assess for this.

You should avoid contact with unvaccinated children, pregnant women and those with weakened immune systems whilst the rash persists.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/shingles/
https://www.cdc.gov/shingles/about/index.html
Click to expand...

I developed shingles in 2014. I was just 60, and had had chicken pox when I was about seven. I had been working very hard campaigning for independence, and worrying about it, because it was something I wanted very much. I was well stressed. In late August I went to London with a friend to the World Science Fiction Convention, an event we had booked back in 2010 before there was even a hint of a possible referendum. I thought it would be good relaxation.

On the first evening I felt generally under the weather and went back to the hotel early to get a good night's sleep. In the morning I still felt a bit seedy but carried on with the convention. In the afternoon I started to notice a rash on the left side of my back, and asked my friend to take a look. She thought it was shingles and advised me to seek attention. I said lethargically, let's just watch this short play and see how I feel by then. She said, it's three o'clock in the afternoon of the Friday of a Bank Holiday weekend. You need to do something NOW. Of course she was quite right.

I went to the first aid at the convention centre and after a lot of them talking about detergent allergies and bed bugs in hotels and me saying "but the distribution of the lesions..." they gave me the address of a nearby hospital that had a walk-in GP service. I got a minicab there, and as soon as I gave the name of my doctor in Scotland the reciprocal arrangements kicked in and I was seen very quickly. The rash was so early that the young doctor called in an older colleague to confirm his diagnosis. The older doctor took one look at me, said "That's shingles" in a very firm voice and walked out again. I was given a prescription for acyclovir and some industrial strength painkiller. The longest wait was for the minicab to come back, but he took me to a chemist where the prescription was filled, and I actually managed to take the first dose in the taxi on the way back to the hotel. About an hour and a half after I'd seen the rash.

I took it easy for the rest of the convention but still managed to go to most things I was interested in, and do a little light sightseeing. I never had that pain, not at this point. When I got back to work I said that I had had shingles, in the past tense, while I was on holiday. But a couple of days later I did get that weird pain, though I suspect not as bad as some people describe. I took one of these painkillers, which put it away, but then had to phone in sick to work because I was so woozy I couldn't have driven a car safely! The pain gradually went away over the next few days, and that was that. I was very lucky because I got the treatment so fast. Looking back though, I think that had a big effect on it being suggested that I should move to part-time working in 2015. I hadn't been firing on all cylinders during the latter part of 2014.

I thought once you'd had it you were unlikely to get it again and that vaccination would be pointless, but one or two people said no, you should get it, enquire at the doctor's surgery. I hadn't got round to it when I got a letter urging me to get the vaccine, and I still hadn't got round to it when, one morning, I got a phone call saying I should have the vaccine, and if I could get myself to the doctor's surgery for 2.30 that afternoon would that be OK? I said yes, and went. The nurse said that people do get it twice sometimes, and basically why not. So apparently they're going to chase me in about July to have a second dose, but if I don't hear from them I should get in contact myself.

All pretty efficient, and they really, really seemed to want me to get that vaccine.
 
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Big recent news is that the shingles vaccine is associated with lower incidence of dementia! Yippee!

It's not entirely certain how much of this is simply correlation because people who get the vaccine are a self-selected group likely to be healthier anyway. Either way, yippee for that.

e.t.a. I see I got ninjaed on that, my bad for not reading up the page. No surprise. Yippee anyway!
 
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I haven't had a shingles vaccine yet, but I did have chicken pox in my senior of college during finals. They gave me some leeway on it since it kinda sucked and still finished with a 3.92 GPA. It was back in the day, so I don't think they thought it was a really big deal. Kinda weird that it was so late in life.

Hey, anyone remember Pox Parities?

Pox parties, also known as flu parties, are social activities in which children are deliberately exposed to infectious diseases such as chickenpox.
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Parents actually did that. Wiki if ya want it.
 
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