finally quit

**I should add here that I was consuming a lot more coffee in the weeks during my taper and following my quick cold turkey quit. I was sleeping regularly, but the increased caffeine/coffee could have played a role in getting shingles. I was so ultra fatigued from quitting nicotine (still am, a bit) that I was (trying) to compensate with caffeine. Or was the fatigue from the shingles all along? I don't know. But it wasn't like I went from no coffee to tons of coffee all of a sudden. I was already consuming coffee, and I just increased it by some when I quit.

I got shingles within a week or two of quitting vaping more or less cold turkey. I'm 39, very fit, overall healthy, etc -- except for the nasty and long-lived nicotine addiction. I do believe there is a strong connection to quitting and getting shingles -- not that quitting predicts or necesitates getting shingles. But it's not a coincidence when they happen together. Anyway, an odd fact that you will find is that current smokers are actually less likely than the average person to get shingles. Something about the way smoking manipulates the t-cells, is the theory there. Obviously it's not a reason to smoke or delay quitting. It's just an interesting phenomenon born out of our very complex immune system.