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\n Photo-Illustration: The Cut; Photos Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
I felt like I was going crazy. I had a small bump on my stomach and an aching pain in my ribs, and my Google searches pointed to a scary explanation: shingles. I made an appointment to see my doctor, certain it would turn out to be nothing.<\/p>\n
But Dr. Google was right this time. My doctor took one look at me and said, \u201cI\u2019m sorry, you definitely have shingles.\u201d Then she told me I had pushed myself too hard while training for a marathon. \u201cIt is not a mild case,\u201d she said. \u201cYour body is telling you that you\u2019ve been doing too much and need to slow down.\u201d<\/p>\n
The painful viral infection that shows up as a terrible rash and nerve pain that can last for months, my doctor told me, comes from dormant chickenpox virus in your body and appears when your immune system is weakened or you\u2019re under stress. I was shocked. How could I have shingles? I thought I still had years before I needed to worry about it; I\u2019m only 43. I left the doctor\u2019s office in tears, dreading what the next week would bring as the rash grew worse.<\/p>\n
When I told friends of mine, mostly ambitious women in their 30s and 40s, about my diagnosis, almost all of them had a story of their own. There\u2019s Ahna, who was planning the school talent show, overseeing multiple events at her church, and training for a marathon, all while working a full-time job and raising two kids. And Kyna, who had a full-time research position at a hospital while studying for the MCAT; Veronica, who was about six months into a high-profile new job and already dealing with co-worker drama; and <\/strong>Kinsee, who was trying to work during the pandemic while taking care of her children and overseeing their remote school. (After recovering, she said, she\u2019s since gone on to get shingles two more times.) One friend was waiting to hear if she\u2019d get a big promotion and got shingles on her vulva. Yes, truly. \u201cI couldn\u2019t sit for a month,\u201d she told me.<\/p>\n They all were stressed by the demands of what\u2019s basically normal life for most of us \u2014 having to hold it together at work, at home, in our overextended lives. Mostly circumstances we can\u2019t do much about. And, like me, some said their doctors blamed them for bringing the shingles on themselves. \u201cMy doctor said it was because of my stress,\u201d Ahna said. \u201cShe said once I get shingles, I\u2019m susceptible to another episode, so to try and keep stress down.\u201d Good luck with that.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve started calling shingles the scourge of the millennial woman (plus some young Gen-Xers) because we fall in an unlucky age gap: If you\u2019re 50 and up, you can get the shingles vaccine; if you\u2019re 30 or under, you\u2019ve probably had the chickenpox vaccine, which makes getting shingles way less likely. And, of course, women ages 30 to 50 are very likely to be stressed by school-age kids, aging parents, demanding jobs, and the incessant \u201cworld is on fire\u201d nature of our day to day.<\/p>\n Shingles cases have been rising across all age groups since the late 1960s, but the increase has been sharpest among adults in their 30s and 40s. A 2016 study found cases in Americans under 50 quadrupled from the late 1940s to the early aughts, and CDC data shows the trend continuing through 2019. And a March 2026 study found that younger adults with chronic conditions like depression, diabetes, lung disease, and asthma actually had a higher shingles risk than healthy adults in their 50s.<\/p>\n Women get shingles more than men across virtually every age group, and the gap is widest right in the millennial sweet spot. Jennifer Moffat, a SUNY microbiology and immunology professor who\u2019s been researching chickenpox and shingles for decades, said that\u2019s both because women\u2019s immune systems are more susceptible to the virus and because our lives are more stressful.<\/p>\n After getting the bad news from my doctor, I rushed to the pharmacy to start a weeklong course of Valtrex, which, if started quickly enough, would stop the shingles rash from spreading further. Within a few days, I had a ring of red bumps along my rib cage to my back. It felt like I was constantly being stabbed with tiny needles. I took ibuprofen four times a day and struggled to sleep at night. I canceled my marathon plans, but otherwise continued my life as normal \u2014 parenting and working and occasionally reminding myself to calm down.<\/p>\n Weeks passed and the shingles just wouldn\u2019t go away. The bumps faded, but the nerve sensations wouldn\u2019t quit, switching from pain to itching to (my actual least favorite) a tickling sensation. Imagine trying to sleep while someone constantly tickles your stomach.<\/p>\n The normal course of shingles is over a month, but for some people the pain can last the rest of their lives. If you get it on your face, it might permanently impact your vision. Given how painful, debilitating, and long lasting shingles is, some researchers want to give us millennials a shot at the vaccine.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m in favor of everyone getting this vaccine who wants it,\u201d said Moffat. \u201cAnyone who is under 50 now and is interested in not ever having shingles could talk to their doctor and decide if they were eligible.\u201d So why isn\u2019t the vaccine available for younger people? The fact that it impacts women more might be part of the explanation, Moffat said: \u201cI think it\u2019s that a lot of the decision-makers are not women, so the people sitting in rooms deciding who gets this vaccine are not women.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt Health, said there\u2019s also a cost-benefit analysis. The risk of shingles increases dramatically after age 50, he said, so it\u2019s harder to argue that insurance should pay for younger people to get the vaccine. \u201cBecause the occurrence of shingles in that population is so low that in effect the juice ain\u2019t worth the squeeze,\u201d he said. \u201cYou don\u2019t give the yellow-fever vaccine to people who aren\u2019t traveling internationally.\u201d<\/p>\n