After a few days working in the garden, and taking rubbish to the local tip, I notice a few bites on my waistline.  I thought they were midge or Mosquito bites, but they turned out to be far worse problematic.  My wife and I had to go and look after my mother who is suffering from Alzheimer’s.
It was an 8 hour journey on slow coach Arriva, I felt uncomfortable on the way up, with not a clue of what was about to happen to me.  We retired early after our long trek, only for me to wake up about half three in the morning, with excruciating pain all around my side.   It felt like my ribs were broken  and my skin was on fire along with what felt like someone was repeatedly stabbing me in the side with a blunt knife.  I had to get up and sit in the chair downstairs for a bit or just walk about to stop this endless pain.  I had contracted Shingles, I have never had them before and hope will never get them again.  You cannot lie down without diabolical pain with a feeling like someone had doused you in petrol and set it alight, the pain came in waves the pain was so bad it made me feel sick.
The next morning I travelled about 20 miles to a health food shop that I was a customer of, we arrived only to find they had closed down.  I need some health supplements to ease this pain from hell.  On returning back to my mother’s house, I scoured the internet for health food shops, the only one I could find was about 25 miles away.  Next morning we set off on our quest to the shop, we arrived a few hours later only to find an earlier traffic accident had put in the shops windows resulting in the shops closure.   Shingles are bad enough on their own without all this fruitless travel.
That evening my daughter informed us about another health food shop in the centre of Manchester, this time I had a telephone number to check if they were open, they were.  I obtained some Oregano oil capsules, DSMO, Tea Tree oil, Cayenne Pepper, enabling me to make a potion for dabbing on to the Shingles and a mix to consume also. I did get some light relief, but the burning itchy skin continued for a few days after.  I would not wish Shingles on my worst enemy; it is definitely an illness from Hell.