[mudman]

Think of herpes like pines, there are lots of different types.
Chicken pox= herpes zoster= shingles. All the same virus.
Chances are you have some variety of herpes.

I had a clinically acute case on my face and head. Trigeminal nerve root is where it popped up from. A nickname for the trigeminal is the 'suicide nerve'.

It changed my life. I still have scars and post herpetic neuralgia. Anti inflammatory drugs helped a little, most relief I found was from marijuana (seriously). I have a very high pain tolerance but I was in hell for 3 weeks. Barely slept, barely ate. Couldn't open my eye (eyelid and eyebrow were so swollen, skin in my eyebrow split open in several places). I had it on my nose as well and had to see some special eye doctor because I was at risk of losing my sight.
Total time until I truly began to recover was over 4 weeks.

There is no way to describe the pain. Light rain on my face felt like a million bee stings, a gentle breeze was like a blow torch on my forehead. My whole body ached like I had been in a bad auto accident.
Then as I was healing I had to walk around with crazy oozing scabs. Something I would never want to repeat.

Stress seemed to be to blame for causing the virus to wake up (rather my body stopped suppressing it). I owned a landscape design/build company at the time and this happened during my busy season. That and the fact that I didn't have health insurance made this a very expensive illness.
Not fun. Do not recommend.