Interviewer: You may have heard there's a new shingles vaccination, and your doctor might have recommended that you get it. Should you? Well, we'll talk about that next on The Scope.
Announcer: Access to our experts with in-depth information about the biggest health issues facing us today. The Specialists, with Dr. Tom Miller is on The Scope.
Interviewer: Let's talk about shingles. First of all, let's just set the stage. What is shingles?
Dr. Miller: Let's talk about that. So shingles is what we call recurrent chicken pox. Now, before the chickenpox vaccine was given routinely to children, most of us, probably greater than 95% of us, have had chicken pox and may not even remember it as kids. Now, once you've had it, it never goes away. The virus goes into your nerves in your spine and hides, and for reasons that are not entirely clear, probably because our immune system sort of forgets that the virus is hidden over time, chicken pox comes out again as shingles or herpes zoster. So it doesn't present as a fulminant, itchy rash like we get when we're kids, but it comes out in specific areas where the nerves innervate parts of the skin.
Interviewer: Meaning it's painful.
Dr. Miller: Well, it's painful, and what's even more concerning and more damaging, probably 10% to 20% developed what we call postherpetic neuralgia, which is a pain that continues after 90 days. And it's very severe and very hard to treat. Some people when they have postherpetic neuralgia can't even wear a shirt because it's painful.
Interviewer: Sounds miserable.
Dr. Miller: Treatments are not very good either. So the best you can do is prevent shingles.
Interviewer: And there is a shingles vaccine. And a lot of people have already gotten it, and now I'm hearing about a new shingles vaccine. So help me kind of reconcile if I should get it or not.
Dr. Miller: Well, that's right. So we say there's about a 30% lifetime chance that you'll develop shingles, and shingles rises in incidence after the age of 50, and by the time you're 80 years old, probably about 20% of people who develop shingles will have postherpetic neuralgia, which is this chronic pain that goes on and on and on.
If you vaccinate, it's basically waking up your immune system to watch out for that virus sneaking out of its hidden cave and coming back and bothering you. So the first vaccine was a live vaccine that was developed in the middle of the last decade. And it was pretty darn effective. But there's a new vaccine that is recommended even if you've had the older vaccine, that is not a live vaccine. And the advantage to that is we can now give this newer vaccine to patients who are immunocompromised. That is to say that their immune system is not quite up to par. It would have been dangerous to give them even a weakened live vaccine because they could develop full chicken pox. So we didn't we didn't give that older vaccine to folks who are immunocompromised.
Interviewer: So if you've been told you couldn't get the shingles vaccine before, now you can?
Dr. Miller: Now you can.
Interviewer: Okay.
Dr. Miller: If you have a history of being immunocompromised.
Interviewer: So that person for sure should get it. Who else should think about getting it?
Dr. Miller: Well, anyone who's over the age of 50 and certainly over the age of 60, the advantage to the newer vaccine is it is a more potent and efficacious vaccine. It works better than the older vaccine. So, in time it will become probably the sole vaccine available.
The issue with the newer vaccine is, one, it has more side effects. And two, it's costly and the older vaccine was costly, but this is a little more costly. So side effects, and what I mean by that is about 10% of the time people after getting the vaccine will develop a flu-like illness that's bad enough that they may not want to go to work.
Interviewer: So symptoms like chills, body aches . . .
Dr. Miller: Chills, aches, malaise, you just don't feel quite right. It lasts for 24 hours to 48 hours and then it's gone. This is not a reason to not get the vaccine. It's self-limited. It doesn't mean that it's going to go on. It was also a sign that this is a very immune genetic vaccine, that it is revving up the immune system and making the immune system remember that it has to go after the zoster or go after the shingles virus if it comes out of the nerves in the spine. And we know that this new vaccine is more effective in the sense that it lasts longer.
Interviewer: So if I got a shingles shot a couple years ago, and I'm 65, if I'm over 50, should I really consider turning around and getting this one?
Dr. Miller: The recommendation is to receive the new vaccination, even if you had Zostavax, the first vaccination, the live vaccination that was out.
Interviewer: At any point?
Dr. Miller: At any point.
Interviewer: Okay.
Dr. Miller: Well, I probably say, if you've had Zostavax, you would wait a year, maybe two or three years before getting the new one.
Interviewer: You can talk to your physician about that if that's the case, yeah.
Dr. Miller: You can talk to your physician. And then I think the second thing is some people assume that this particular vaccine is covered under Medicare. Certain vaccines are covered under visits during for people who have Medicare insurance, such as the flu shot and a couple of other vaccines, pneumococcal vaccine for instance. This one is not. It's covered under Part D. So you really need to find out from your insurance what the cost of this vaccine will be. The other slight disadvantage with the newer vaccine is it's a two-shot vaccine. You take the first shot and then come back in three months for the second shot.
The total course of therapy on average or treatment on average is about $340 if you were just to pay out of pocket, and for many people who don't have insurance, that's a big inhibitor. But since most of us over 65 will have Medicare and some coverage, it'll be cheaper. But again, check with your private insurance or check with Medicare to know what it's going to cost you so you don't get hit with sticker shock.
Interviewer: Yeah, and then take a look at I mean, it sounds like if it develops into the long-term chronic pain, not being able to put on a shirt, I mean, that sounds like it might be worth figuring out how you could come up with a little extra money if you're not able to.
Dr. Miller: Well, that's true. I think one of the problems that we see folks experience, they come in and they hear about it, and then they get the vaccine, but they experience the sticker shock. And either they decide not to get the vaccine or they wait.
And just as long as you know what the cost is, you can make an informed decision. And I certainly recommend it in all of my patients over the age of 50 and certainly over the age of 60.
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