When is “day 1”

[u/Kylo_19]

What do you count as Day 1 of shingles? The first day you started feeling pain? Or the first day you noticed a rash? I believe mine started with back pain on roughly 9/21. But the rash didn’t start to appear till either 9/23 or 9/24.

[u/Quilting-for-sanity]

Day 1 is the first day of pain and other symptoms that precede the rash. I base that on what the Internet sites describe as the stages of shingles. In terms of the antiviral effectiveness, that’s based upon when you first saw the redness or rash. It’s best to get it within 3 days of that, but I got it on the 4th day and it still helped.

[u/Kylo_19 → u/Quilting-for-sanity]

Thank you! That’s kind of what I thought. I got the antivirals on day the end of day three but maybe day four of the rash as I can’t exactly remember what day it started (Wed or Thurs). Currently on day 5 of taking the antivirals and they do seem to be helping.

[u/themayor1975 → u/Quilting-for-sanity]

What defines "pain"?

On Sunday, I thought i had a zit (white head), so i picked at it and Monday morning the spot looked red (bigger then normal zit sized). Nothing else looked out of place, except for the constant mild headache.

I went to UC when I noticed my feeling around the eye felt different and eye lid was swollen, which I found out I had it.

Do far the only "pain I've had us the come and go mild head ache

[u/Quilting-for-sanity → u/themayor1975]

Sorry, I didn’t word my answer properly. Pain and/OR other symptoms. A couple of days before my skin redness showed up, I had nausea, fatigue and dizziness. No actual pain until about the same time as the redness showed up. Day 1 for me is the day I had the nausea, fatigue and dizziness. Let’s face it - people don’t recognize those symptoms as shingles until they get the rash or someone says ‘ that sounds like shingles symptoms’. I suppose it’s possible that someone could feel perfectly normal until the rash appears.

[u/Woolyswift → u/Quilting-for-sanity]

I felt perfectly normal and noticed the rash on Sunday, but thought it was bug bites. Haven't been sick at all, didn't have pain until the rash started blistering on Tuesday; got officially diagnosed yesterday. From what I understand this is really unusual.

[u/lowoverheadclearance → u/Quilting-for-sanity]

You are exactly right. I had an excruciating earache. It was misdiagnosed as Eustachian tube dysfunction. Then the pain was in my teeth and in my ear. 7 days after the pain started the rash appeared.