;Resize=(1200,627)&impolicy=perceptual&quality=mediumHigh&hash=d28dbf06ce275ada2a308a526fe8bd40c1d896c74097efa3f1edf7b3cd3b498a "Voss-Tecklenburg: “This illness shocked me”")
It happened on vacation two years ago. In a completely stress-free situation. “I was lying in a deck chair and thought something had stabbed me in the back,” says former international and soccer coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg in a YouTube video. At first she didn’t take it seriously, thinking it was an insect bite. But when the pain became so severe two days later, Voss-Tecklenburg consulted a doctor.
Shock diagnosis of shingles – nerve pain, pain when moving and lack of sleep
The diagnosis was quickly made: shingles. A shock for former top athletes. “Although there were already three illnesses in my family, I didn’t see the personal risk for myself,” she continues. Anyway, she was active, living her life and feeling fit. “I was very shocked that I got this disease,” says the 55-year-old.
Her condition quickly deteriorated. A rash developed after the sting, spreading from the back down the abdomen. The pain also became more intense, she felt very bad: “It hurt like hell, I had nerve pain and a general feeling of being unwell”. Voss-Tecklenburg was quite used to football. “I’ve had so many injuries, but the fact that it affected me so much scared me.”
The disease plagued her for almost nine months. The rash subsided after a few weeks, but the soccer coach could no longer sleep at night, and she was also plagued by pain when moving and nerve pain. “It took a lot of energy to deal with this disease,” she emphasizes.
Voss-Tecklenburg advises prevention and a discussion with a doctor
Today, almost two years after the illness, the athlete no longer feels any limitations and has regained her sporting level through training. “My experience has definitely changed my risk awareness,” she emphasizes. In order to spare others the fate of shingles and to educate others, she speaks publicly about her illness: “I’m now trying to make other people aware of the severity of shingles in everyday life and advise them to talk to their doctor about it as a preventative measure.”
One in three suffers from shingles
Like Martina, many people underestimate their personal risk of shingles. One in three people will contract the virus during their lifetime. This does not happen through infection, but through reactivation of the chickenpox pathogen varicella zoster.
More than 95 percent of people over the age of 60 carry the pathogen after a chickenpox infection – mostly in childhood. Due to an age-related weakening of the immune system, people over the age of 60 are particularly at risk of contracting shingles. Up to 30 percent of patients develop complications in the form of persistent nerve pain, a so-called post-herpetic neuralgia.
The Standing Vaccination Committee (Stiko) recommends a shingles vaccination
all persons over 60 years of age all persons over 50 years of age whose immune system has been weakened, for example by illness, after a bone marrow or organ transplant or suppressed by therapy, and all persons over 50 years of age with a serious underlying disease of the lungs, kidneys or intestines, etc.
However, since younger people are more often affected by shingles, either because of stress or as a result of a serious infectious disease, many experts generally recommend vaccination against 50 years of age – but especially with a weakened immune system.
Watch out for early symptoms
Watch out for symptoms that appear in the early stages, i.e. before the rash appears, and if in doubt talk to your doctor about them.
Up to about a week before the blisters appear, the following are possible:
Conspicuous tiredness and poor performance Slight fever Swelling of the lymph nodes Headaches Pain that can be quite severe and runs from the back to the front, i.e. in the affected area. This nerve pain arises on the path of the virus on the nerve fibers because the pathogens can damage the nerves. Many sufferers describe this pain as burning, sometimes very severe.
Two to three days before the blisters form:
The skin area is suddenly sensitive to touch, some compare it to the feeling of brushing past stinging nettles. These sensitivity disorders can be very different. The skin area can tingle, sting, itch. The area of skin reddens, is slightly raised, and then the blisters form – it’s high time to see a doctor.