Just a spot of local color from the neighborhood.

Several weeks ago my cat sitter lady was complaining about some
smallish, sore, itchy spots on the back of her hand and showed them
to me.  She does some gardening so I suspected that it might have
been poison ivy, though she said it actually hurt, which didn't seem
to fit the usual symptoms.  She tried the regular poison ivy, itchy
skin remedies but the pain and itching persisted, for more than a
week, which also seemed to rule out the ivy.  It was a mystery.

Yesterday I was in the back yard boiling a snapping turtle (don't
ask) when she walked by and said she'd been to the doctor and been
diagnosed with Shingles.  Mystery solved!  My ears perked right up.
I mentioned how Shingles was a reactivation of the Chicken Pox
virus, and she said I was right.  I didn't mention that the virus is
the Herpes zoster virus, but that's true, too.  She said she went to
the local healthfood store and picked up some Lysine and some other
herbal thing.  Her symptoms persist, though maybe not as strongly as
before.

I mentioned to someone else that Shingles is better known for
showing up on a person's torso ("zoster" is Latin for "girdle",
describing the location where the virus usually appears), but she
said that her father-in-law had it on the back of his hand, too.

Interesting!  No?

Mike