His mother, Carol Garrett, told TMZ that Garrett died Sunday, February 8, and the family is awaiting autopsy results to determine an official cause of death.

She told the publication that Blake went to the emergency room in Oklahoma last week after experiencing intense pain and was later diagnosed with shingles, a viral infection that causes a painful rash.

His mother said that Blake may have self-medicated to deal with the pain, and suspected his death may have been a tragic accident.

That’s young for shingles, right?

[–] MimicJar@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

It definitely is. Looking around online it seems there is some sort of relationship between having had COVID and developing shingles, but I'm not a doctor.

Doubly surprising is that I didn't know you could die from shingles directly. If you're older it can cause major issues and complications, but I didn't know death was possible.

Sad all around.

[–] BertramDitore@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 month ago

It’s pretty rare, but it happens. I got shingles when I was 18, and that was after having a natural case of the chickenpox at age 5 or 6. Still have the scars, it hurt like a motherfucker.