All in all, Zostivax is a good idea. The 60+ age recommendation didn't come from research, it came from a bureaucratic decision (IIRC, it was the Feds) because there wasn't enough vaccine to get everyone down to age 50 (which was the age the research said was ideal). You can get the vaccine at any age if you're willing to pay for it, and at $200, it's not a huge expense.
The bottom line is that it reduces your chance of getting Shingles by about 50% (lifetime risk), but more important than that, it reduces the severity of pain and disfigurement by 60-70%, and there does not appear to be a lifespan on that protection. I don't know where that "5 year" number came from, I haven't seen anything to support that in the medical literature on that.
But yes, you can still get shingles if you've had Zostivax. It happened to me... I got shingles less than 6 months after I got the shot, in my left ophthalmic nerve. I reported it here on the 24HCF, but the summary is this: pain came on about bedtime, and by 0400 it was excruciating... burning, throbbing, stabbing pain in my temple area to the edge of my eye which I'd call a solid 9 out of 10 on the pain scale. I took a strong pain pill and it reduced it slightly (to 7/10), and in the morning I called an optometrist here on the 'Fire who called in a Rx for Valtrex. Within 2 hours of starting the Valtrex the pain dropped to 1-2/10, and stayed that way for 5 or 6 days. I went to an ophthalmologist and he said he could see a few very small Herpes zoster lesions inside my eye, but no lesions ever broke out on the skin, cornea or anterior chamber of the eye. He rechecked me a year later and there was no scarring and my vision was unaffected.
Comparison to pre-Zostivax results: my ophthalmologist colleague told me that prior to the vaccine, he had never seen anyone with ophthalmic shingles have as good an outcome as I had; and since he saw me, he's seen half a dozen more similar cases.
Consider that of the locations that shingles breaks out, the ophthalmic nerve is second most common (most common is the chest/high abdomen), and without question the most painful. I've had people on high-dose narcotics, steroids, and nerve agents for 6 months after an attack of ophthalmic shingles. No thank you, I'll take the Zostivax!
