Age: 70.0
Sex: F
Vaccine: VARZOS
Symptoms: Therapeutic response unexpected
Clinical narrative: This spontaneous report as received from a 70 year old female patient with thyroid and heart (unspecified disorders). Allergies included sulfa allergy. On an unknown date (reported as 7 or 8 years ago) the patient had an active case of shingles, on her head, mouth, nose and hip. On an unknown date when the shingles were going on 5-6 weeks, the patient was vaccinated with ZOSTAVAX dose 1 (strength, route, lot number and expiration date not reported) for prevent of shingles. Concomitant therapies included thyroid, metoptirax (manufacturer unknown) and voterin (manufacturer unknown). The patient stated that on an unknown date (reported as 2 or 3 days) after vaccination with ZOSTAVAX the shingles were gone. Patient sought medical attention. Follow up information has been received reported that on unknown date 2007 (also reported as this all happened at least 7 years ago), the doctor whom he consulted was retired, she went to the physician and saw a Nurse Practitioner, because she had a very large lump on her head, about the size of a quarter. When she first got it the only thing she remembered was that in the middle of the night her forehead itched really badly. A couple of days later her husband noticed one morning that she had a really large lump on her head. She thought that may be she had a spider bite, so she went to the doctor, saw a Nurse Practitioner, she wanted to show the doctor, but she was headed off to lunch. Two weeks later she went back to the doctor to get an allergy shot. The physician took one look and said that she couldn't get the allergy shot because she had shingles. Her boss at work had told her about a friend of his that had the shingles and had gotten the vaccination after he had already come down with shingles. He told her it helped to clear them up. She spoke with her doctor told him the story and asked him if she could get the shingles vaccination (reported as vaccination). He told her he didn't saw hwy she couldn't, it certainly wouldn't hurt her. He gave her a prescription and said take it to the pharmacy. When she get it, bring it back to him and he would inject it. The pharmacy couldn't get the medicine, so she went to a clinic that didn't do anything but vaccinations, called E-vax, and they got the medication for her, then gave her the shot. Approximately on 2007 (also reported as all happened at least 7 years ago), This all took about 1-1/23 months. She had the sores in her nose, hair, and inside her mouth, besides the large one on my head. She tried everything, but nothing would clear up the one on her forehead. As soon as she got the vaccination ZOSTAVAX, the large sore on her head cleared up in about 3 or 4 days. She recommended the vaccination to everyone, but most of them do ask until they already have the shingles, and most of their doctor's at that point won't even give them the vaccination. She had not experienced any residual pain from her episode, or gotten them again since. She said it was probably a month and a half after she got the shingles, that she was given the vaccination. She did not have any problems or side effects because she took the vaccination while she had the shingles. The outcome of events was unknown. Causality was not reported. Additional information has been requested.