Good News - Shingles vaccine linked with lower risk of dementia : John Gilmartin

Good news in dementia prevention 

From yesterday's Washington Post,

Shingrix vaccine for prevention of shingles disease appears to also have a genuine reduction effect on dementia development. Shingrix is a two dose vaccine made by GSK (Glaxo Smith Kline).  Some of you may already have received the Zostavax made by Merck up until 2020.  Zostavax does not appear to have an effect on dementia reduction, and is no longer marketed.  Shingrix is covered by Medicare part d so should cost you nothing.

Currently Americans over 50 have around a 20% coverage rate, this means 80% of the old folks who stand to benefit from this vaccine have not asked their doctors or pharmacists to set up their appointments.  It's a small shot in the arm and has essentially zero side effects.  It's an excellent vaccine made by one of the premier manufacturers in the world.  

Shingles is at best a rotten painful disease that usually hits middle aged people with a rash across their midsection that becomes extremely painful.  Once it starts there is essentially no treatment that reduces the disease course.  If you go to ER within a few hours of the rash appearance the ER might give you a course of an antiviral drug that has about a 30% chance of reducing the infection spread.  I know this from experience and reading.

Shingles can be much worse than a painful rash.  The disease is an infection of one or more cranial nerves coming off your spinal cord.  It can express in the facial nerve and lead to blindness and acute pain.  That was my father's experience.  He survived it but was permanently affected by the disease.

The dementia reduction news is an exceptional event.

Click here for the article by Elizabeth Cohen in the Washington Post