Saturday, July 15

I've got shingles

And not just on my roof.
Is is a coincidence that I did have the roof on my house re-shingled a couple of years ago? And how come I didn't blog about that?
As I recall, I chose "dimensional" shingles and went with a contractor who installed the heavier felt; I found the contractor (who did zero advertising, not even a yellow or white page telephone entry) through a neighbor.

As for my case of shingles, in Chinese the official name is 帶狀皰疹 or 帶狀疱疹 dàizhuàngpàozhěn. The traditional Chinese medical names (in no particular order):

帶狀皰疹 dàizhuàngpàozhěn
帶狀疱疹 dàizhuàngpàozhěn
纏腰龍 chányāolóng
串腰龍 chuànyāolóng
纏腰蛇 chányāoshé
蛇盤瘡 shépánchuāng
蛇串瘡 shéchuànchuāng
蛇丹 shédān
飛蛇丹 fēishédān
蜘蛛瘡 zhīzhūchuāng
皮蛇 píshé
生蛇 shēngshé
熱瘡 rèchuāng
纏腰火龍 chányāohuǒlóng
纏腰火丹 chányāohuǒdān
火帶丹 huǒdàidān
甑帶瘡 zèngdàichuāng

Note how they also use words like belt 帶, dragon 龍, snake 蛇 (and variations like flying snake 飛蛇, skin snake 皮蛇, and living snake 生蛇), bind 纏 string 串 to describe the shape of the patch of blisters. Cinnabar 丹 is for the color, while fire 火 and hot 熱 describe the sensation (ouch!). Apparently 甑帶 also refers to the feeling and the shape; a 甑 is a cooking vessel and the 帶 is wrapped around it. What about spider 蜘蛛; is it because the blisters look like little spiders? Or spider bites?

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