<p>Our family has had my folks (in their 80s), H who is a SR, me in my 50s & brother in his 50s all get the shingles vaccine. NONE of us had any side effects. We all decided the pros greatly outweighed the cons. To me, the thought of having painful nerves from the shingles even years after having had an episode of shingles was a HUGE incentive of doing all we could to prevent.</p>
<p>I, my H & D were not particularly debilitated when we each separately contracted our bouts of shingles (pre-vaccine), so you do NOT have to be all that weak and vulnerable before you contract it. Both D & H had much worse courses of shingles than I because it was diagnosed too late for the anti-viral to be of much help for both of them. Their alertness saved me from the pain they endured.</p>