OK following an earlier thread on here, I have now had my flu jab and and am looking at the winter from my little superior bubble of wellness!

What do you know/feel about shingles? It's never really concerned me, but I have seen some quite inflammatory ads and leaflets about my likelyhood of getting it....should I just avert my gaze and find better reading material, or have many of you thought about this or had the shot?

I thought about it, cos it can be very nasty, then i found out it cost $200, so changed my mind. We now have benefits so maybe i will see if they cover it. I had shingles when i was a child but you can get it again and it is worse when you are older.

My doctor told me if we could afford, we should get it. We did! I regarded the cost as worth it - like buying any kind of insurance.

It's good to be superior.

Where has all this shingles stuff come from, my parents had it recently as well.

If you watch the American news the adverts during it are bonkers. 18 hours stiffies... shingles... speak to your doctor if you get sausage fingers.

I was actually discussing this with my doctor this morning. He said the vaccine studies claim to show 60-70% effectiveness but these are studies being done by the drug companies themselves so he doesn't believe it. He also said that this will be advertised hard until the patents run out - same with Gardicil (HPV).

Thank you so much for your replies, yes this Shingles thing, does sort of seem to be a bit all over the place at the moment....somewhat like a rash! I feel this country is turning me into one of the worried well, I don't watch very much television, but every time there is an ad for some drug, I'm now wondering if I might need it. The other day my son and I watched an ad for a drug with a calm and happy looking woman, but we had no idea what she was selling....I looked it up and it seems to be a female version of Viagra apparently...that's evidently where I've been going wrong

I was just saying what my doctor said - if you can afford it - do it.

Now I remember why I haven't bothered with this board for 10 years.

10 years eh?