Tyrese Haliburton Can't Catch A Break, Now Battling Brutal Face Shingles
The Indiana Pacers star opens up about painful shingles diagnosis while recovering from Achilles injury
It has been a rough 10 months for Tyrese Haliburton.
We all remember watching the Indiana Pacers star tear his Achilles during Game 7 of the 2025 NBA Finals. It was an injury that effectively sucked the life out of his team and the Pacers' fanbase. The Oklahoma City Thunder, of course, went on to win the game and hoist the Larry O'Brien Trophy.
So, as if recovering from a torn Achilles and the sting of a Finals loss wasn't bad enough, Haliburton revealed on Monday that he's been battling yet another medical issue — shingles. On his face.
"I'm going on eight weeks of shingles right now — face shingles — and I haven't been able to get rid of it," Haliburton said on The Pat McAfee Show. "I've switched my meds like three times, and I've got a botox injection. None of it has helped."
What started as a bad rash, he said, has turned into an altogether "miserable" experience.
"Once the rash went away, the itching came, and it's been miserable," Haliburton told reporters on Monday. "I've lost part of my eyebrow. My eye is always swollen from itching it. I have good days and bad days, but for the most part, it's bad days. So it has not been any fun. I'm still honestly dealing with it."
Haliburton explained that a side effect of the shingles meds is an increased appetite. So some unwanted weight gain has derailed some of his progress in the gym.
"I'm the heaviest I've been right now. I'm bulking. I'm strong. I'm lifting all the time. This is good," Haliburton said. "And then face shingles hit me. And so now the bulking has turned into just, I'm just bigger for no reason. So now they're killing me on social media. I'm being called Tyrese Hali-Burger."
Just adding insult to injury in what has shaped up to be a miserable season for Indiana. In Haliburton's absence, the Pacers went 19-63 this year — finishing second-to-last in the Eastern Conference.
In other words, this team will be elated to get Hali back on the court this fall.
Assuming he finally gets over his shingles by then.