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Q: 

does vaccine for shingles affect MS symptons.

By Anonymous April 14, 2010 - 8:19am
 
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Anon,

Welcome to EmpowHer. Do you have MS, and did you have this vaccine? Have your symptoms changed, improved or gotten worse?

Here's what I found about a link between the two on ehow:

"Multiple sclerosis (MS) affects more than 250,000 people in the United States, yet a cure remains elusive. MS researchers identified a surprising link between the virus that causes shingles and the autoimmune disease, multiple sclerosis. However, the implications of this link are not completely understood. Although there is no cure for multiple sclerosis, the vaccine for shingles may offer palliative benefits to multiple sclerosis patients and open the doors to further research."

Here's that article:

http://www.ehow.com/about_5542231_multiple-sclerosis-shingles-vaccine-cure.html

But doctors are split on whether the shingles vaccine is good or bad for patients with multiple sclerosis.

Here is a paragraph from a CDC report on the incidence of MS diagnosis in people who have had shingles:

Certain studies have evaluated the risk for zoster (herpes zoster, or shingles) in persons with other noninflammatory co-morbid conditions, although findings have not been consistent. Two studies have documented an association between zoster and diabetes mellitus (148,149). However, this association was not indicated in two other studies (150,151). Another study documented an increased risk for zoster in persons who subsequently had multiple sclerosis diagnosed (152).

And this Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences study suggests that young multiple sclerosis patients may get shingles at an earlier age and more often than the general population, illustrating some sort of link:

http://cjns.metapress.com/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,5,12;journal,71,71;linkingpublicationresults,1:300307,1

Can you be more specific about your question? Have you asked your doctor as well?

April 15, 2010 - 9:08am
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