Do you remember this? Somewhere in the ’80s, a mom on your street picked up the phone and said the magic words: “Jenny has chickenpox. Bring the kids over.”

And just like that, you were invited to a chicken pox party.

It wasn’t considered weird back then. It was just practical.

Everyone knew chickenpox was milder and easier to deal with in kids than in grown-ups, and there was no chicken pox vaccine at that point, so the plan was to get the whole neighborhood sick at once and be done with it. 

Our moms sat at the kitchen table with a glass of Tab and Virginia Slims while we crowded around the itchy, dotty, chicken poxy kid. 

We shared her popsicle, drank from her cup, and played Hungry Hungry Hippos close enough to catch whatever she had. Some of us were sent to sleep over on purpose. Two weeks later, half the block was home from school at the same time.

Mission accomplished…I guess🤷‍♀️.

We all did end up getting the chicken pox. Some of us got more itchy, scratchy dots. Others only got a few. Remember the pink calamine lotion? It definitely had a distinctive smell. And your mom dabbed it on with a cotton ball until you were covered in pink, chalky dots that crackled when you moved around. The oatmeal baths on the other hand were nice. Some of the moms put socks on your hands at night so you’d stop scratching. 

We all eventually got over with chickenpox cycle, and vaccines didn’t show up in the U.S. until 1995, so pretty much every one of us had the real thing.

But, here’s the reality with this, the virus never really goes out of your body. Once the chicken pox spots healed, it then settles down into our body’s nerve system and goes dormant for a while. For decades sometimes. Then when the immune system slows down, as we age, stress, being sick, or certain medications, it then can wake back up and travel down a nerve to the skin. That my friends are the crappy reality of shingles. It is a downright painful, blistering rash, usually in a band on one side of the body. Many times it’s across the lower back near the spine radiating outward. Sometimes it can be across the neck and even on your face and in your eyes. And about 1 in 3 of us will get it, and the odds go up after the age of 50.

What many of us don’t know is that shingles can be tied to heart attacks and strokes. Even the American Heart Association has been sending out information regarding shingles and what you can do to prevent them. 

Researchers point to three ways it can happen.

First, it causes inflammation. 

Any infection that inflames your body can raise your heart attack risk. Inflammation can irritate the plaque already sitting in your arteries and make it more likely to break open. When it does, a clot forms right there. Doctors see the same pattern after the flu too. 

Second, the virus can go straight into the blood vessels.

Usually it rides a nerve path out to the skin. Sometimes it takes a little detour along nerve fibers into an artery wall and inflames it from the inside. Over time that can narrow the artery, weaken the wall, or set the stage for a clot. Doctors call this VZV vasculopathy, and the virus has turned up in both large and small blood vessels.

Third, clotting. Shingles has been linked to clots forming near the brain and the heart.

The danger is highest right after the rash shows up. When researchers pooled data from nine studies, stroke risk was about 78% higher in the first month. A year out, it was down to about 20% higher.

Shingles on your face or near your eye is the one to take most seriously. Those nerves sit close to the arteries that feed your brain, and stroke risk roughly doubles in the first month after an outbreak there.

A big Harvard-affiliated study followed more than 200,000 people, most of them women from the Nurses’ Health Studies. The ones who’d had shingles had almost a 30% higher long-term risk of a major heart attack or stroke. That risk may hang around for 12 years or more.

Stroke risk was about 38% higher. The risk of a heart attack or needing a heart procedure was about 25% higher. People with weakened immune systems had it worse.

There’s one more blood vessel problem on the list, and it’s one a lot of us have never heard of. Giant cell arteritis, or GCA, is inflammation of the arteries, usually the ones that run along your temples. It almost always hits people over 50, and women get it more often than men.

Studies have found GCA is more likely after shingles. The risk is about 50% higher after a typical case, roughly double after a complicated one, and more than three times higher after shingles near the eye. One research team found traces of the shingles virus in most of the GCA arteries they looked at, but other labs haven’t been able to repeat that. So the virus might be a trigger, or it might just be along for the ride.

GCA is rare, but know the signs. A new headache at your temples. A scalp that’s tender when you brush your hair. Jaw pain when you chew. Any change in your vision. GCA can cause sudden, permanent vision loss, so if any of those show up, call your doctor that same day.

The shingles vaccine looks like it may protect your heart too. Over the past year and a half, study after study has pointed the same way.

To be fair, these studies show a connection. They don’t prove the shot is what’s protecting the heart. A huge trial of about 162,000 adults is underway in Denmark to settle it. But the evidence keeps stacking up in one direction.

If you’re 50 or older, ask your pharmacist about Shingrix. It’s two shots, 2 to 6 months apart. Get it even if you’ve already had shingles, because it can come back. Your arm will be sore and you might feel crummy for a day. Clear your calendar and claim the couch.

Do not take the shingles vaccine if you have an active case of shingles.

If you think you have shingles, call your doctor now, not next week. Antivirals work best when started within about 3 days of the rash, and one large study tied antiviral treatment to a lower stroke risk afterward. If it’s near your eye, get seen today.

For the weeks after shingles, know the warning signs and don’t talk yourself out of them.

If you’ve ever had shingles, even years ago, tell your doctor. It’s a good reason to keep a closer eye on your blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar.

When we were kids chickenpox meant a week home from school watching The Price Is Right and the Young and the Restless on the couch, with the customary calamine lotion dots drying on your face. No big deal. Right?

At the time, nobody told us chicken pox came with a lifetime membership to the shingles club. Not exactly what we signed up for when we got chicken pox, but now we have the knowledge and options to take charge of our future wellness. 

OMG! PIZZA DAY was the one lunch day you really looked forward to!

When we walked anywhere near the cafeteria area the whole hallway smelled scrumptious rectangle pizza. 

On rectangle pizza day our lunch ladies were rock stars! We all had our favorite pieces of pizza. If the lunch lady liked you, she would ask which piece of pizza you wanted. Then they would scoop the beautifully sectioned pizza slice onto a molded plastic tray. The rectangle of pizza in the big compartment, sometimes we had a side of green beans, but a lot of times it was green salad with Italian dressing, and then a fruit cup on the side, and a carton of chocolate milk or plain milk - your choice. It was always kind of hard to open and you had to pry open at the folds. The pizza crust was soft and a little bready. There were tiny crumbles of ground beef. There was a little slick of orange grease that pooled in the corners. It was absolutely perfect.

If you search “lunch lady rectangle pizza” and you’ll find hundreds of so-called “authentic” recipes. Sure, many are tasty, but most are just modern remixes with olive oil, sea salt, and Italian sausage. That IS NOT what the lunch ladies made. 

DON’T BE FOOLED! The real Rectangle Pizza recipe came from an official government source. It was actually published recipe in the USDA cookbook called Quantity Recipes for School Food Service, and the 1988 edition includes the pourable pizza crust that fed a generation of us. The original makes 50 servings and is measured in gallons and quarts. Home cooks have since scaled it down to fit sheet pan that you would normally use at home.

Three things made school pizza taste like school pizza:

Depending on your district, your rectangle may have come frozen in a box. This would not be that version. But if yours was soft, bready, and baked in big sheet pans, and had a crispy crust…then this was probably it.

Adapted from the USDA’s 1988 school recipe. Makes one half-sheet pan (13 x 18 inches), 10 rectangles.

Crust

Topping

Directions

A note on the salt: Yes, it was only a quarter teaspoon. It was 1988, I guess, there was some kind of a salt moratorium at the time. I really don’t recall. But since you’re making it at home now, you can add more salt so it’s got a tastier crust, just add ¾ teaspoon of salt. 

Serving Suggestion: Serve on a divided tray with a carton of chocolate milk for the complete experience - if you’re not lactose intolerant. 

Click to Order on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/incijones

MEDICAL DISCLAIMER

This newsletter is for education and information, not medical advice. It's not a substitute for a relationship with a qualified healthcare provider who knows your history. Please use what resonates here to spark better questions and conversations with your health care provider, and more collaborative care with your own health care team.