Shingles affects more than one million people over the age of 60 each year in the U.S. But it's largely a man-made epidemic. Plus, a recent study links the wildly popular shingles vaccine with a slew of nasty side effects — including serious, permanent eye damage.
Shingles is a viral infection that causes a painful, blistering skin rash — one that can last for months or even years. It's caused by the varicella–zoster virus, the same virus that causes chickenpox.
The chicken pox vaccine, which public schools now require children to receive before beginning kindergarten, has played a large role in causing the skyrocketing shingles rates.
If you contract chicken pox as a child, you develop a lifelong immunity to it, and you have a much smaller risk of developing shingles as an adult.
On the other hand, when you get the chicken pox vaccine as a child, you never develop natural immunity to chicken pox…or shingles. So, you run a much higher risk of getting shingles as an adult.
I belong to the last generation permitted to normally catch the actual chicken pox virus as a child. But today, the rates of shingles cases have skyrocketed, as more and more people who were vaccinated instead, and never got the natural chicken pox infection with lifelong immunity, are now reaching middle age.
The FDA approved Merck's shingle vaccine, called Zostavax®, in 2006. We knew from the get-go that it could cause chicken pox itself. It's the same virus, after all.
In 2014, the FDA added a warning that the shingles vaccine could cause…shingles.
The vaccine to prevent shingles can actually cause the infection it's supposed to prevent. Sounds pretty pointless, don't you think?
Then, in February 2016, the FDA added a second warning that the vaccine could also cause necrotizing retinitis and keratitis.
Keratitis, or inflammation of the cornea, causes inflammation and scarring of the eye. It can also lead to permanent vision loss if not treated in a timely manner.
According to researchers from the University of Missouri School of Medicine, adults can develop these dangerous conditions within 24 days of receiving a chickenpox or shingles vaccine. And children can develop the conditions in even a shorter window of time — 14 days.
Researchers say they don't know why the shingles vaccine can cause retinitis and keratitis, but some say it relates to autoimmune disorders. This line of thought makes sense.
In fact, the link between autoimmune disorders and vaccinations is now so widely acknowledged, there are entire textbooks written about it.
Fortunately, you can dramatically lower your risk of getting shingles by simply staying off these blockbuster drugs.
So, there's no real need for the shingles vaccination. It's my recommendation that you skip it altogether.
And by skipping the shingles vaccine, you'll also skip the potential side effects that could permanently damage your eyesight.
In my eyes, we should reserve vaccinations for when they really make sense.
Unfortunately, mainstream medicine tends to ignore all the effective, common-sense, natural approaches that will help you maintain your health as you get older. And they promote incorrect approaches that can potentially cause more harm in the long run. Approaches just like the disastrous shingles vaccine which, as you now know, can wreak havoc on your vision health.
In the current April 2018 issue of my Insiders' Cures newsletter, I'm correcting that oversight (so to speak) by covering everything you need to know about keeping your eyesight and hearing sharp well into your 70s, 80s, 90s, and beyond. If you're not a subscriber, now's the perfect time to get started.