Kristin Davis Describes Having Shingles On Her Face

Davis’s First Sign Of Shingles Was An Uncomfortable Pain On Her Forehead

Davis, like well over 90 percent of adults over 50 years of age, had the virus hiding in the nerves of her body sort of like The Thing the movie The Thing because the varicella-zoster virus is what causes chickenpox—you know that thing that so many people had as a child. The chances of that virus getting reactivated increases with age, particularly after crossing the 50 years-on-this-Earth mark. However, the now 61-year-old Davis noted that two years ago “It didn’t enter my mind that I could be a potential candidate for shingles. So I hadn’t gotten any kind of prevention treatment,” because she had incorrectly assumed then that you had to have some kind immunocompromised situation like a chronic medical condition for shingles to rear its ugly head, so to speak.

Therefore, when she began experiencing, “some uncomfortable pain on my forehead, which is strange,” you could say that she didn’t have a “shingle” idea of what was happening. Davis added that “It was sensitive. So I said to my makeup artist, ‘My forehead hurts just right here,” pointing to the right side of her upper forehead.

Eventually, she developed some “shooting pain” there and “a little bit of bumps like a rash.” That’s when her makeup artist suggested shingles as possibility, noting that he himself had gotten shingles on his forehead previously. That prompted Davis to contact her doctor. “I was going home to see my kids, and the bumps were starting to come out,” Davis detailed. “I went to see my doctor in LA, and they said, ‘Definitely, this is shingles, and you need to rest, because it could actually go to your eye.”

Davis Didn’t Realize That Shingles Could Appear On Your Head Or Go To Your Eye

You could say that Davis didn’t eye any of this as a possibility before it happened. She had thought that shingles was more of a trunk thing rather than a head or potentially going to the eye type of thing. But shingles occurring somewhere on the face is actually not an uncommon thing. In fact, shingles affecting the eye—known as herpes zoster ophthalmicus—may constitute 10 to 20 percent of all shingles cases. Herpes zoster ophthalmicus or HZO can result when the occurs when the varicella-zoster virus reactivates along the ophthalmic branch of the trigeminal nerve.

The possibility of herpes zoster ophthalmicus developing can be an “eye” carumba situation because of the possible complications of HZO. The cornea in the front of the eye can get inflamed and damaged, which can lead to numbness there and permanent vision loss. Inflammation of the inner eye—such as iritis or uveitis—can block the normal drainage of fluid there, leading to glaucoma. Your retina can get damaged too. Each of these things can lead to some type of permanent blindness, which as you can probably see would be quite bad.

That’s why the appearance of shingles anywhere near your eye—meaning a painful rash or blisters somewhere on your face or head—calls for immediate medical care. This is especially the case if there are any vision changes or eye-related symptoms. These include eye pain, swelling or grittiness or photophobia, which is sensitivity to light. Davis didn’t have any eye symptoms but her forehead being not too far from the eye—as is the case with most humans—raised concerns.

So, when Davis got the diagnosis, did she rest immediately, like her doctor recommended? Umm, not exactly. The option of not working initially didn’t work with Davis. “I don’t even really lay down,” Davis expressed to me. “Like, it’s just unheard of for me to miss work.”

So Davis related to me her first response: “I said, ‘no, no, no, I can’t rest. I have to go back to work, because production is something I can’t really miss.’” But others around her helped her see otherwise. She said, “They said, ‘No, no, you don’t understand. That is not a risk that you should take.’” When Davis told this to her producer, whom she’s been with for 30 years, “He said, ‘Then you have to lay down. Do not mess with this. We can change the schedule.’ So that was really sweet of him.”

Davis’s Shingles Pain Lasted For Three Weeks

“And it’s a good thing,” in Davis’s words. “Because I still had pain, I want to say, for three solid weeks. I had shooting pain in my head and the bumps, I was able to stop the bumps as I took medicine as soon as we figured it out.” She added, “But the pain lasted.”

Treatment typically consists of taking a doctor-prescribed anti-viral medication like valacyclovir (Valtrex), famciclovir (Famvir) or acyclovir (Zovirax) for seven to 10 days. Timing is everything as such medications are most effective when started within 72 hours of the rash first appearing. Such medications can hasten healing and lower the risk of complications.

Another part of shingles treatment is managing the pain, which can be very intense. Like intense in a you-never-felt-such-bad-pain type of way. “It was bad,” Davis said. “I would never want anyone to go through that.” Options are over-the-counter pain medications or doctor-prescribed treatments like anticonvulsants, tricyclic antidepressants, capsaicin cream, lidocaine patches, or corticosteroids. Davis mentioned that she didn’t take the “harder drugs” because “I don’t like to take that kind of stuff and I’m a single mom. But I took Tylenol and Advil, nothing. [The pain] just kept shooting down the side of my head for weeks.”

Fortunately for Davis, the pain eventually went away, which is not the case for everyone. It becomes known as postherpetic neuralgia if the pain where the rash first appeared lasts three months or longer. And such persistent pain can be a real pain.

Davis Feels That Shingles And Other Health Conditions Should Be Discussed More

Davis has been open about her experience because she would like more people to talk about such things openly. “I feel like there’s just not enough factual talk about what it’s actually like to get older and the things that you have to think about and do for yourself,” Davis lamented. “I feel like we all talk about how we look. But we don’t always talk about actual health.” She mentioned that “People are always exchanging tips and tricks as you’re aging for your skin or whatever, but we don’t always talk about like the insides and the insides are what’s really important.”

Yeah, you can’t make up the fact that her make up artist is the first one to help her realize that she could have shingles. Davis indicated in an Instagram post for GSK’s “Shingles, actually” campaign that since her experience with shingles she learned that one in three people develop the condition in their lifetimes. GSK is the maker of Shingrix, the recombinant shingles vaccine that reached the market in 2017. Shingrix is currently the only shingles vaccine available in the U.S. since the first one to reach the market—the live-virus Zostavax in 2006—was discontinued by Merck in 2020.

And one can’t stress enough the role that stress may play in reactivated the varicella zoster virus. Davis stressed that since her shingles episode, “I’ve really been really paying much more attention to am I getting enough sleep? Am I getting enough exercise? Am I also just taking it easy when I can?”

That doesn’t mean that Davis hasn’t continued to do a Char-lot-ta stuff. For example, she’s continued to do her podcast “Are You a Charlotte,” which she described as “a rewatch of Sex in the City. I’m finally in season six.” Here’s a recent episode:

Health challenges are a normal part of life. So, it does make sense to normalize talking about different health conditions that you may face—on your face like Davis and elsewhere. Because you never know what may come up when…just like that.