Byte1: the only way you CAN get shingles (herpes zoster), is if you first have chicken pox (varicella). If you've never had chicken pox, and don't get get chicken pox, you will never have shingles. Unfortunately, chicken pox is spread so easily that if you haven't been vaccinated for it, you have a very high likelihood or contracting it from someone else. Once you've had chicken pox, you are vulnerable to shingles for the rest of your life - UNLESS you vaccinate against it.
So it's good you did that.
I didn't have chicken pox when I was a kid, but I was vaccinated against it. My sister had chicken pox though. Having sores and blisters in her mouth and her "nethers" (imagine a 8-year-old kid needing to wipe themselves after going to the bathroom, but they have oozing blisters down there) was enough to convince my mom that a shot was probably the lesser inconvenience.
I did have an incredibly mild case of shingles many years ago, I thought it was ant bites. It was just a rash on my upper arm that itched and burned and went away on its own a couple of days later.
I got the Shingrix shot several years ago, as soon as I was old enough for insurance to cover the cost.
Got the MMR, the DPT (the older version of what is now known as Tdap), and polio vaccines all when I was a kid, and got some kind of booster of somethingorother in order to get into college. I got boosters on ALL the shots the CDC recommended for anyone who doesn't remember or know what they're immunized against, around the same time I got the Shingrix shot.
I get the flu shot every year now, didn't used to get it, but then I got the flu for the first time in my life, and decided a shot was the lesser of two evils.
If the CDC recommends an ADDITIONAL measles booster, I'll get that too. I don't enjoy getting shots, but I enjoy being sick even less than I enjoy getting shots. So - I get the shots.
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