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Comment by andy99 | Hacker News Reader

I read before that iirc because of waning protection it’s better not to get it too early. It’s not clear to me why you can’t get it twice, but what I read (and it was some online discussion so could be wrong) was that someone had been specifically told by their doctor to wait to 50 as the best spot to get it. I’d like to know more, I’m in my 40s and would be happy to get it now too but not if it was going to be worse overall for some reason.

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The antibodies you develop to fight the virus fade over time. I just had it fairly recently (young 30s, vaccinated with the attenuated chickenpox virus, never had chickenpox, so this was likely the vaccine strain¹). Did a lot of reading and research during and after. The antibodies seem to offer good protection for 5-10 years following either vaccination or infection according to the literature I was reading.

¹ The vaccine strain tends to be much more mild than the wild strain, and indeed it was quite unpleasant, but not extremely painful for me. The wild strain is considerably more painful and linked to a greater incidence rate of complications. Please do not skip chickenpox vaccinations for your kids, the minor risk of latent infection from attenuated vaccine is far less harmful than the consequences of not vaccinating. Most important of all, if you have a cluster of blisters or rash on one side of your body that keep popping up, make sure to see a doctor and get on antivirals within the first 72 hours for best results.

You had Shingles after never having chicken pox except the vaccine?

Yes. In my case, the virus became active after severe and chronic sleep deprivation one summer where I tried experimenting with going from a 16/8 sleep schedule to a 24/12 sleep schedule, on a now-resoundingly-disproven hypothesis that the ratio of waking hours to sleeping hours was more important than the absolute number of each for healthy functioning.

Stress and sleep deprivation are known triggers for the virus, which lies dormant in the nervous system for life after initial infection, and can be dormant for decades at a time between reactivations.

As I understand it, antibodies only last a month within the blood before they degrade.

It is the memory B cells that produce them that last years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_B_cell

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-lifespan-of-an-antibody-in...

My primary care suggested I hold off to mid-late 50s instead of right at 50 for this reason. Between not wanting shingles, and some of the newer research into neuroprotective angles I'm not sure I'm going to do this however.

Hmm but as I understand it, dementia begins in your 30s. It's just that we don't see the signs of it until much later. So if it is protective, waiting doesn't seem wise (on the dementia side of it).

You absolutely can get it twice. It's currently not officially recommended, but that's probably just because Shingrix is relatively new, so booster shots aren't that relevant yet.

Yeah

And you can absolutely get Shingles before 50 (in some cases)

But surely you can do a booster shot?

So far as I know there's no standard booster protocol for Shingrix.

That just tells you it hasn’t been fully researched, not that it wouldn’t be useful.

You could just get one more dose, right?

I've had two shingles shots: Zostavax and Shingrix. There's no reason you couldn't take either shot again. You might have to pay but no big deal.

I know people who've had shingles and it is not only a major PITA but can be life-threatening, can blind you, etc., just bad stuff. Don't delay taking advised precautions, including injections.

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