[cash4cards]

I share the same painful experience. I had chicken pox at age 5 and got them from my father who was having a shingles outbreak at around 28 years old.

I got shingles when I was 33-34 (now 45) and I recall the hot knife shooting pains and constant ache in my lower chest, rib cage and around to the underside of my shoulder (all on my right side). I struggled to sleep because no position was comfortable. I felt like I had been a car accident and had been tossed around but had no visible signs of anything. After almost a week of that I went to the doctor and the nurse told me she wasn't a doctor but asked If I would take my shirt off to show her. She saw a few blisters that were starting to form after a week of pain and no signs and said that I def have shingles. They gave me a strong steroid that didn't help. The whole ordeal was about 14 days long with nerve/muscle pain first week, then nerve/muscle/blister pain week two.

The Latin word for Shingles means belt. That's because the chicken pox virus lays dormant in your nervous system and then when it decided to come out it will almost always come out of one nerve belt. For me lower chest, ribs and under the shoulder blade on one side. For OP his was face, neck and into the upper chest and shoulder on only one side I assume. I have heard of cases of people having it in multiple nerve belts at the same time though rare. One nerve belt was bad enough for me!