A Dallas man who is recovering from monkeypox says the symptoms are “100 times worse” than COVID-19 and feels like someone was sticking needles in him.
"I'm not allowed to leave my apartment and I'm too terrified to even want to give this to anybody because this has been the most traumatic experience,” Luke Shannahan said.
Shannahan, who works at a Dallas restaurant, said he was feeling fine until about 10 days ago.
"By Day 2, I started running 101 (degree) fever and that lasted for three days,” he said. “There was a constant headache. Lymph nodes were swollen like I was a frog."
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A day or two later, he got severe blisters.
"The pain and tenderness was constant,” Shannahan said. “It's like if someone took a ball of needles and kept on stabbing you with it."
He was diagnosed with monkeypox but isn’t sure where he got it exactly.
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"I was going to the bars,” he said. “I was out in public. I was going to pool parties."
He got the coronavirus last summer but said monkeypox doesn’t compare.
"Oh 100 times worse,” he said. “This was a totally different level of extreme fatigue.”
Shannahan said he laid in his bed for two days straight and thought he was going to die.
He got the vaccine, which is in limited supply and only available to people who already have monkeypox.
And now, 10 days after his first symptoms, he's feeling much better.
"I'm so happy. I had a celebration coffee this morning,” Shannahan said. “(I) put an extra chocolate square inside of it. I was like, 'Yes!'"
