I tried a 16:8 IF for 5 days and developed shingles

It took a few days for me to figure out what the odd “rash” was. This has never happened to me before! It was incredibly itchy, and then painful. It wasn’t until I realized it was spreading to my back that I broke the IF schedule. Now it’s finally healing, although it will probably take a few weeks to disappear completely. I had been drinking 16 oz of coffee and multiple cups of herbal tea prior to breaking my fast (at 1pm or 1300), but now I’m wondering if having anything besides water messed with my body. Or maybe it was the massive change in eating habits plus a calorie deficit of about 250/day? My goal was to lose about 10 lb and maybe get past my hormonal acne. I have struggled with the last ten lb despite consistent food tracking, but now I think I put way too much stress on some systems. Has this happened to anyone else? I’d like to get back on the IF schedule, but obviously I’m pretty hesitant about trying again once I’m healed up.

Answer

When u fast and do low carb ur body doesnt feed the bad viruses and bacteria in your body that live off sugar. Because they are being starved they look for ways to escape in the beginning. It’s common to see an outbreak of hsv, shingles, fungus ect. Doesnt mean the fast isnt working, quite the opposite

Answer

I haven’t come across a ton of research about this, but some anecdotal stuff (plus an immunology article or two that was a bit too technically dense for me to completely understand) seems to suggest you might have a temporarily diminished immune response during extended fasting—but then an improved/more robust response after refeeding. Haven’t seen much on intermittent fasting, but read some people saying their hormonal acne got worse for a couple of weeks before it got better (but did finally get better than it had ever been). Not sure what that all means.

16:8 doesn’t seem that drastic, but who knows. Making changes to your diet (and hormones) could be related somehow. Shingles outbreaks can also just happen randomly to anyone who’s had chickenpox earlier in their life—often associated with some kind of stressor, but not always.

Might be good idea to ask your doc about a shingles vaccine to prevent a recurrence, in any case.