Book Board Chat

bookbase/Sandy I know you work in a pharmaceutical related area and I want to tell you how delighted I am with Merck. I have been wanting to get the shingles vaccine ever since I turned 60 (which was the recommened age at that time). I saw what my mother went through when she was dying of breast cancer. But our insurance did not pay for it and I put it off. My doctor had said that instead of her giving it to check to see if it was cheaper at the pharmacy. It was but not by much so I didn't do it. This year my aunt got a horrible case just like my mother had (sisters). When I went for a check up in July I asked about cost again since I could not remember how much it was or if maybe the price had come down. It turned out that Merck was running a special program this year!! The doctor charged $250 BUT Merck picked up $140 of the cost! The thing that was so amazing is how fast I received the check from Merck. I thought it would be one of those things that I would have to wait months for and instead in a matter of 2 weeks I had it.

Those on Medicare can get it for free. My aunt wishes he would have had it and she can't believe that after what her husband (retired doctor) has seen her go through that he still has not gone for his. I can't get DH to go either. He says that he will wait until it is either 'free' [covered under insurance] or he is covered by Medicare. I wasn't waiting that long no matter what I had to pay. Just talking to my aunt was painful. She has it for months and months. DH was funny when he was reading about it and said that I could have given him chicken pox! hahaha he still doesn't believe that he had a very mild case when both the sons came down with chicken pox! It didn't help that the doctor at the time had told him that if he had not said about the children having chicken pox he would not have thought that the couple of red bumps he had had on his chest were chicken pox. I told him that now this proves he had chicken pox since he was exposed to me and didn't get a case (I knew that if he had not had it he could get it, but I knew he did).

Although the doctor said that it is not a thing that runs in family, I have to wonder if some people are more inclined to get it based on their genetic make-up. Not only my mom and her sister but there is another close family member who had it but at a young age. Even the nurse agreed with me - both her grandfater and her dad (when he was in his 30s) got it.

Although I usually don't mention my illnesses, colds, bumps, boo-boos, as long as I am on the topic, boy did I take a tumble yesterday. I am all black and blue on my one side and it is quite painful. DH and I were trying to get two stinkbugs at the top of a blind. He was sticking in our stinkbug stick from the one end and I was to get them with a tissue as he poked them out. As I was climbing up on a cedar hope chest that had been my father's mother, I lost my balance and fell. I hit the edge of a laundry basket on the way down. And there you have my tale of my boo-boo - boo hoo. Might have bug bite tales to tell after the camping trip! LOL

Merck’s Shingles Vaccine Not Reaching Enough U.S. Adults

Too few American adults have been vaccinated for shingles, the painful sibling to chicken pox, according to research that calls for efforts to increase the U.S.-recommended inoculation.

Fewer than 2 of 10 Americans ages 60 and older have been vaccinated, while the rate is less than half that for those in their 50s, according to a study presented today at the annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in Denver.

Almost one-third of Americans will get shingles in their lifetime, with about 1 million cases in the U.S. each year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The vaccine Zostavax, from Merck & Co. (MRK), was cleared for sale in 2006 for people 60 and older, and for use by those in their 50s in 2011. Still, too few people take advantage of it, doctors said.

“It’s a good idea if you’re older than 50 to go to your doctor and have that discussion about when you should receive your vaccine,” Melissa Johnson, an associate professor at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, said today in a presentation at the conference. “This is a conversation we should all be having with our family members.”

Shingles is caused by the same virus as chicken pox; it can remain in the body after a chicken pox infection and become active again years later. It’s characterized by a painful rash that generally clears within a month and can be accompanied by fever, stomach ache and chills.

A more problematic lasting side effect is postherpetic neuralgia, a burning nerve pain that can be severe enough to disrupt sleep and affect appetite, according to the Mayo Clinic. Good treatments for the pain don’t exist, Johnson said.

Shingles costs the U.S. health system at least $1 billion each year, through a combination of doctor visits, medications and missed work, she said.

“This is a potential area where we can do cost avoidance,” Johnson said. Patients can “get Zostavax as part of routine coverage.”

Shingles becomes more prevalent with age; about half of infections occur in those 60 and older, according to the CDC. Yet just 16 percent of Americans in that age group had been vaccinated in 2011, the study of almost 30,000 people found. That compares with 4.3 percent of U.S. adults in their 50s.

The Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine in the younger set after research showed it helped reduce the risk of shingles by 70 percent compared with placebo, according to an agency statement.

Rest of article: http://tinyurl.com/ovby669