I suffered from shingles in October 2025 for about 15 days before things got worse.

The shingles were getting dry, some scars on my right costal arch. On November 6, in the afternoon, I was laying on the sofa in my flat. I was agitated, but I did not know why. There was no reason for me to feel that way. I thought about going to work next week.

All of a sudden, I had a bad headache on the right side of my head. My neck was also hurting badly on the right side. I even couldn’t touch my skin without this pain. Two hours later, I had the feeling of getting seasick. I tried to vomit, but it didn’t work. I called a number in Germany to get medical help. The person asked me if I had eaten something wrong. I said no. She insisted and told me that it would take about an hour to send a doctor. I said that I needed help and that I was willing to wait.

After half an hour, I was vomiting a little. So I thought maybe that the person was right – I had just eaten something bad. So I called that number again and cancelled the doctor.

I went to bed. I slept a while and then I woke up, I had a fever. I was very nervous. I was turning all night long from the left to the right. My head was still aching and it was getting worse. I was shivering and so pulled on three woolen pullovers. I turned the heating up. I had four blankets. But it was getting even worse. All the night there was a flickering before my right eye, the flickering was like little black and white dots.

At 6:30 in the morning, I called a taxi and went to the hospital. I was walking down the stairs and I had a feeling that I was going to fall down. I also confused, it was like delirium.

In the hospital, the doctor checked everything. But she couldn’t find anything. So after a CT scan of my head she told me that she would take fluid out of my spine (lumbar puncture). Another young doctor took my hand, while taking the spinal fluid. My right head was aching badly like never before in my whole life, my forehead felt as if thousands of needles were inside. My brain was also aching. I even couldn’t touch it without more pain. It was horrible. Plus I felt all the time like I had to vomit but I couldn’t. My body temperature was 38.5 ° C.

The result of this check up was, that I was now suffering from Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV) encephalitis. The virus had entered my brain!

I received immediate infusions with acyclovir. After the second infusion, I had a so called “Quincke Ödem”, an allergic edema all over my face. My face was swollen and red, my eyes were swollen. My face was aching, red and hot. This was also getting worse. After three days the doctors decided to continue my therapy in the hospital. This took another five days with painful infusions twice a day over three hours. My face was still swollen and red, but it was getting better.

The doctors send me home after eight days in the hospital. I came out of the hospital and I was very weak, I couldn’t walk very fast. I was dizzy all the time. When I came back home I was falling asleep. Walking up the stairs was an enormous stress, I was gasping like after a marathon. I live on the second floor.

The next three weeks I was sleeping all day long. I left the house for about three times in that time, I was completely exhausted, mentally and physically like never before in my entire life.

Then I went for another four weeks to rehabilitation but this was a horror because I wasn’t able to do it. While there I was sleeping most of the day. I couldn’t stand all the noise and noises from other people.

Once home again, it took over two and a half months to realise what had happened to me. It was strange as I was now able to remember every detail in my life, I could move my arms, I could walk, sleep, eat and so on. But it was all like in slow motion.

For the first two months of being home, I slept a lot. Nearly every second day I had a bad headache on the right side. I could feel the right side of my brain, it was hurting. It was so bad that I wasn’t able to do anything.

Physically, it was exactly the same. I was very weak, couldn’t ride my bicycle, because I was afraid to fall down because of my dizziness, as that still continued.

When I was walking I had also that dizziness. It came on suddenly and I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t control it. I was feeling helpless.

Now, another few months later, I am able to stay awake every day for about ten hours. The dizziness is gone. Sometimes my head is badly aching, if there is a change in weather pattern. I still have difficulties to get up in the morning, because I’m so tired.

Still I am not able to work. I am frightened this might happen again. Every evening when I go to bed, I am checking my skin if there are any of these tiny little spots somewhere. The shingles started with about eight or ten little spots, looking harmless, without (in my case) any itching. The shingles resulted from my chickenpox in 1973. The virus stays in the ganglia. It can be reactivated. When I got the shingles I was working about 10 h a day. I was travelling between two cities. My colleague had a bad accident, so I had to work a lot more. Also my father died. This stress took about two months. While this time I was thinking every day, something is wrong, something is coming, but what?

I am happy to be alive without any mental damage or harm.

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Story published August 2026