#63

Yes, please! Thanks.

#64

Keencare Pharmacy Victoria
6 Lower Belgrave Street
London, SW1W 0LJ

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#65

Just called them, their answer: Shingrix is for adults 50 years of age or older or for adults 18 years of age or older at increased risk of herpes zoster. ā€œincreased riskā€ is not defined. So canā€™t get it below 50 if healthy/normal.

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#66

I too was tempted to pursue the shingles vaccine, but there is one thing to remember: this isnā€™t an infectious disease you are going to catch; if youā€™ve had chicken pox the virus is already dormant inside you. Recognizing this is just a thought experiment, a get enough sleep and do not get very stressed vaccine should be equally effective. I know one cannot always avoid challenging periods and hard pushes to a deadline. Remind yourself to put the work down at a reasonable time each night and pick it up again in the morning.

If you had the chicken pox vaccine and not the disease, I donā€™t know if youā€™re even at risk of developing shingles unless you have some weird circumstance that I am guessing would be less likely prior to age 50 anyway.

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#67

You could do a cycle of rapamycin later and say you are going to take an immunosupressive so that puts you at higher risk at that time. It should be valid. Wouldnā€™t be cool to get shingles while on rapa.

#68

I donā€™t understand your point; there is a 1 in 4 lifetime risk of developing shingles so why not get the vax? Unless you never had chicken pox but had the chicken pox vaccine, in that case the risk of shingles might be near zero.

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#69

1 in 3 it is according to the CDC, even higher.

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#70

Iā€™m saying some diseases have an unobservable exposure riskā€”put your genitals in the wrong place, touch your face after holding onto the wrong grab bar, or inhale the wrong sneeze, etc.

This disease is only going to be a risk if you are terminally run down. it would be nice to reduce risk by getting the vaccine, but here you can also moderate your risk by managing stress and exhaustion. Every case of shingles in a young person I have heard about followed on the heels of some significant stretch of overdoing it. This is an observable risk.

You have some control over that is all I am saying.

#71

Sorry to hear that. Explains why they were fine with giving me the shot. Guess India is your best option despite the obvious concern of being exposed to too high temperatures.

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#72

I wonder if a doctor from UK who believes in a similar longevity reasoning may be of help in prescribing it?

Also, if itā€™s not clearly defined, perhaps you can make an argument about why you might be at increased risk than the average person where applicable? For instance, being under steroids for allergies and asthma does technically increase the risk of infections/latent viruses because steroids are immunosupressive (if that applies to you)

#73

The Shingles vaccine is not my top priority, so I can wait until Iā€™m 50, and hopefully, until then, theyā€™ll decrease the age limit (or I might fly somewhere else to get it). I just find it interesting that even if you want it, you canā€™t!

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#74

I agree. Youā€™d think it would at least fall into the shared decision making category.

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#75

The HPV vaccine prevents cancer in men, too. Why do so few people get it?

The data showed that the vaccine reduced the risk of HPV-related cancers by 56% in men and 36% in women ā€” numbers that actually probably understate the efficacy of the vaccine because participants in this observational study likely got the vaccine too late to prevent all HPV infections. The data were analyzed by researchers led by Jefferson DeKloe, a research fellow at Thomas Jefferson University.

There is not really any debate, at this point, that this vaccine would prevent tens of thousands of cases of cancer a year if it were used more widely. Itā€™s a miraculous product, and we should be using it.

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#76

So, for males, getting the vaccine goes from a 0.0075% risk to a 0.003% risk for a total risk reduction of 0.004%.

I think the benefit may be overblown.

Especially when other interventions would probably have a much greater impact on your longevity and health.

You have a 10X higher chance of getting struck by lightning than getting this particular cancer that the vaccine prevents. Yet, people still get both.

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#77

Source for these numbers?

#78

The article two posts above. I just crunched the numbers. 7.5 cases of cancer per 100,000 becomes 3.4 cases per 100,000 in vaccinated individuals. 4.1/100,000 is a reduction of 0.0041%

You can also spin it as a 56% reduction. But the risk is so minuscule to begin with. A 56% reduction in the miniscule is still miniscule.

You have a 1 in 10,000 chance of getting struck by lightning during your life.

However, it makes sense to me that girls under the age of 14 should probably be vaccinated. Maybe boys too since this is sexually transmitted and young people have a lot more sexual partners nowadays. Their risk is probably greater than average.

For the people on this forum who have found a lifelong partner or arenā€™t (or wonā€™t be) sexually active anymore, you probably either have the virus or you donā€™t at this point. Therefore this vaccine provides almost 0 value to anyone who reads this post IMHO. Except maybe parents and grandparents.

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#79

Iā€™m not going to calculate ā€˜absolute risksā€™ because it is related to the context, limitations, and duration of a study, none of which you have listed. About 37,000 cases of HPV cancer is in the USA every year and it is probably causing other diseases we have or have not measured yet like other infections.

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#80

Interesting on yellow fever. I took it MANY years ago - maybe 1975? - so doubt it still has any impact or if it was even the same formula.

Iā€™m enthusiastic about vaccines, so perhaps Iā€™ll look into re-upping this one.

#81
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#82

It seems to be increasing (hereā€™s one cancer that can be caused by HPV):

Mauricio Dener Cordeiro of the Brazilian Society of Urology says the persistent infection of human papillomavirus (HPV), a name given to a common group of viruses, is ā€œone of the main risk factorsā€. HPV can be transmitted during sex and in some cases, it can lead to cancers including in the mouth and penis.

He says: ā€œMass vaccination against HPV is essential due to its high effectiveness in preventing related lesions,ā€ but he adds that vaccination rates in Brazil are below the level needed to be truly effective.

ā€œIn Brazil, despite the availability of the vaccine, the HPV vaccination rate remains low for girls - reaching only 57% - and for boys, it doesnā€™t exceed 40%,ā€ he says. ā€œThe ideal coverage to prevent the disease is 90%.ā€

ā€œAlthough developing countries still bear the higher incidence and mortality of penile cancer, the incidence is on the rise in most European countries,ā€ the team of researchers led by Leiwen Fu and Tian Tian from Sun Yat-Sen University in China found.

They reported that England had seen an increase in penile cancer, rising from 1.1 to 1.3 per 100,000 between 1979 and 2009 and in Germany cases increased by 50% from 1.2 to 1.8 per 100,000 between 1961 and 2012.

These figures are only set to get higher, according to the Global Cancer Registries prediction tool. It estimates that by 2050, the global incidence of penile cancer will rise by more than 77%.

This change can largely be attributed to the ageing population, according to the experts, who say the highest incidence occurred in men in their 60s.

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