Scared into a shingles vaccination

“You want to get a shingles shot?” my pharmacist asked me when I stopped by for a flu shot.

Why? I asked, is it going around?

No more than usual, she said, but it’s extremely painful if you get it. Ask your doctor about it.

I remembered a friend who had shingles during a couple of years I lived in California and the memory was not pleasant. I just remembered it being a rash. I was already scheduled for a visit with my eye doctor and a doctor is a doctor so I asked him about it. He said do it. In fact, he encouraged me to do it.

When I returned to my pharmacist, however, she had bad news for me...