Retired General Practitioner finds ivermectin useful to treat shingles

Another good news email!

Received this week from retired Scottish GP Dr Alistair Mongomery:

Dear Tess,

On the Friday evening of the New Year weekend, my wife Nicola whilst returning from visiting her sister developed an itch on the side of her neck going into her upper shoulder.

On arriving home she asked me to have a look at the area thinking that any latex in her bra strap might have been causing the symptoms. There were several separate clusters of circular spots in the upper distribution of her left C5 dermatome.

The spots did not have any central puncta (indicative of bites) making early shingles the most likely diagnosis. She had also had prodromal symptoms of feeling generally under par all that day.

My heart sank as it is best to receive treatment for shingles as early as is practicable. Our previous experience of contacting the out-of-hours service has resulted in long periods on the telephone being put on hold just to speak to the first triage person with further time on hold to talk to a supervisor. That is then followed by a long wait of up to eight hours for a return call from either a nurse or doctor before finally being offered an appointment to be seen at the medical hub.

It being the weekend of the New Year, I feared that the delay could be even longer and that it was likely that we would have to wait up until three or four in the morning, when getting a good night's sleep would be of more benefit for the body.

  I recalled from online discussions in 2020 that there were good theoretical grounds that Ivermectin could be of benefit in treating Varicella infections, even though its genome is a linear duplex DNA molecule. I had also heard anecdotally of its efficacy in this situation. We therefore decided to start Nicola on 24 mg of Ivermectin (which had recently passed its use-by date) and see how she was in the morning.

 The next day the skin inflammation around the eruptions had decreased, and the itch had lessened.  She took a further dose that morning and again in the evening. By Sunday the itch had gone and the rash was more feint. No vesicles had developed and neither had she any pain. All she had felt was a little more tired than usual. We continued with the Ivermectin for a total of five days, and within a week from the outset there was no residual sign of the rash.

This was completely different from her experience the last time she had had shingles some ten years ago- when despite receiving acyclovir promptly she had vesicles and pain lasting over several weeks.

I realise that this is technically an anecdote, and some might say that "it could not have been shingles". However in my thirty years of medical practice, I have seen my fair share of early to late shingles, and I am confident from the morphology and distribution of the eruption that the diagnosis was correct.

Can I also thank you and your colleagues for all the hard and courageous work that you have all been involved in these last four years, and for the realisation that what is happening in the world is more than just COVID, but that it is just a part of an intricate tapestry of mal-intent by some as-for-now hidden persons.

Very best wishes

Dr Alistair Montgomery

Dundee.

PS. Nicola has corrected me that the rash was faintly visible at the end of the week. Her sister also saw the rash and believed it to be shingles (having had several attacks in recent years). You may also be interested to know that we are both "unvaccinated" and are part of the "SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Control Group". We submit monthly updates on our health to their website.

Dear Dr Montgomery,

Thank you very much for this interesting account. We are hearing of many cases of shingles these days, among young adults too. In association with Covid-19 vaccination, there are more than 45,000 reports of Herpes Zoster on the W.H.O.s Vigiaccess.org website, so it is good to know that this is not a post-vaccination occurrence. I hope that your experience with ivermectin, nipping Nicola’s symptoms in the bud, may well inspire other health professionals to try it. Shingles can be such a horrid condition, painful and protracted. As you demonstrated, when one is dealing with such a safe, inexpensive medicine, that is ivermectin, there is little to lose - even when the ivermectin is a bit past its use by date!

For non-medical readers:

Shingles, also known as herpes zoster, is a viral infection caused by the varicella-zoster virus, which also causes chickenpox. It manifests as rash that appears on one side of the body or face. The rash develops into blisters, which usually scab over in 7 to 10 days and go away completely in 2 to 4 weeks. Although shingles is rarely life-threatening, it can cause excruciating discomfort. Additional indications of shingles include fever, headache, chills, nausea, and vision issues. It is more likely to occur when one’s immune system is not working optimally or when one is ‘run down’. The Herpes family is also associated with ‘cold sores’ and genital blisters.