[anonym29]

The antibodies you develop to fight the virus fade over time. I just had it fairly recently (young 30s, vaccinated with the attenuated chickenpox virus, never had chickenpox, so this was likely the vaccine strain¹). Did a lot of reading and research during and after. The antibodies seem to offer good protection for 5-10 years following either vaccination or infection according to the literature I was reading.

¹ The vaccine strain tends to be much more mild than the wild strain, and indeed it was quite unpleasant, but not extremely painful for me. The wild strain is considerably more painful and linked to a greater incidence rate of complications. Please do not skip chickenpox vaccinations for your kids, the minor risk of latent infection from attenuated vaccine is far less harmful than the consequences of not vaccinating. Most important of all, if you have a cluster of blisters or rash on one side of your body that keep popping up, make sure to see a doctor and get on antivirals within the first 72 hours for best results.

[chasil]

As I understand it, antibodies only last a month within the blood before they degrade.

It is the memory B cells that produce them that last years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_B_cell

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-lifespan-of-an-antibody-in...

[jimbob45]

You had Shingles after never having chicken pox except the vaccine?

[anonym29]

Yes. In my case, the virus became active after severe and chronic sleep deprivation one summer where I tried experimenting with going from a 16/8 sleep schedule to a 24/12 sleep schedule, on a now-resoundingly-disproven hypothesis that the ratio of waking hours to sleeping hours was more important than the absolute number of each for healthy functioning.

Stress and sleep deprivation are known triggers for the virus, which lies dormant in the nervous system for life after initial infection, and can be dormant for decades at a time between reactivations.