I had an MI on May 11 2007. One week after arriving home I noticed two fingers on my right hand had small itchy yet painful blisters on them. Thinking I may have somehow burned my fingers I got a needle and proceeded to pop them to drain the fluid but instead it hurt like hell and bled a little . I went to the doctor the next day and was diagnosed with herpetic whitlow . Confused and thnking it may have come from doing some gardening the doctor said it was from a thorn of some kind while gardening yet its common for nurses to get this due to occasionally being poked by needles. I was given meds to aleviate the problem but it came back a few days after completing the prescription ,I was then given another dose and ACYCLOVIR to keep it away ...suddenly I developed SHINGLES in the last week (facial only ) I have been given FAMCICLOVIR . How could I be taking the main shingles defence medication for months and still end up with shingles ? This really worries me and is very painful itchy and ugly . Any advice on what works and what doesn't would be very helpful Thanks for listening . I'm taking Centrum multi vitamins , Lysine , occasional probiotic and as much Vitamin C as I can handle to combat this and boost my immune system .If you have any recipes for topical cream it would also help . Once again thanks for listening .