Shingles and MS
 

I now have Shingles for the second time this year. Normally people only get it once, but lucky me. I’ve had it three times. The first time was the worst. My second and third haven’t been nearly as bad. I’ve heard that people with MS are more at risk for repeat visits of Shingles, but I thought that was because MS people are often on Disease Modifying Drugs that suppress your immune system. But I have never taken DMDs because I wasn’t diagnosed until I had progressed to Secondary Progressive MS. Other than MS and being overweight, I am a really healthy person. I haven’t even had a cold in years, so I think my immune system is probably somewhat normal. Does anybody know of a link between MS and Shingles other than the DMDs reducing the immune system?

Shingles may activate if your diet is skewed to high arginine containing foods.

High arginine intake with low lysine encourages the virus to
replicate and become active.

You can try taking 2 grams of lysine daily to try and prevent this activation. Also to balance your diet so arginine does not become too high compared to lysine. Lysine tends to make the virus go dormant. This is worth a try. Lysine is very inexpensive and has few if any side effects.

I had shingles back in 1995. Had mononucleosis at the same time. I read somewhere that having mono, and a retrovirus (shingles), at the same time has something to do with MS activating in some people.

I had weird little symptoms for years after that, that I know now are MS symptoms.


I had shingles again earlier this year.

I'm sorry, I thought I put this food chart up....

http://www.herpes.com/Nutrition.shtml

If you take arginine supplements, or eat alot of arginine containing foods, you can accidentally activate Herpes zoster, shingles.

This is a common thing in nursing homes. Long term care patients who get bed sores are often given an arginine supplement.. like Arginaid drink. This then leads to an attack of shingles ...I've seen it many many times.

Shingles and MS link?
 

There was a unique study done in China awhile back about this. It was on the Reuters news service. Search "Shingles + MS + China" . I found it very interesting because I had shingles before I was Dx'd with MS.

Wow! That's really interesting. I know I didn't have mono until I was almost 30, and I definitely had shingles break out while I was down with mono. I never felt "myself" again after that double whammy, but it was six years before I was dx'd with MS.