Shingles

What Are Shingles?

Shingles is an infection that causes a painful and very uncomfortable rash. It’s scientific name is Herpes zoster and it is a neurological disease not a skin disease as most people think. It usually subsides within 3-5 weeks from appearing, and some people experience a reactivation of this condition, called zoster sine herpete, that doesn’t show any rash. It affects the nervous system with or without showing the skin rash.

It is a painful condition, but rarely a serious one. The worse complication is called post-herpetic neuralgia, which keeps the skin painful for a long period of time, sometimes even years, after the rash is gone. Zoster sine herpete, however, may have more serious complications.

What Causes Shingles?

Shingles is caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox - the Varicella-zoster virus. When a patient suffering from chickenpox recovers, the virus hides itself in the nerves and remains inactive for long periods of time. After several years, it can reactivate itself and cause shingles. This is the reason why shingles vaccine shots and chickenpox vaccine shots are the same. This usually happens on patients who have a malfunction on their immune system.

Only people who have had chickenpox in the past can have shingles as this condition cannot be induced. If fact, when a person gets the virus from a shingles-suffering patient, it develops chickenpox and not shingles.

Shingles Symptoms

Shingles start with headache and eye pain (particularly, sensitivity to strong lights); then these symptoms evolve and develop into severe itching throughout the body, chills, fever and severe pain in the areas of the skin where the rash is developing. Additionally, there may be sporadic numbness and stabbing pain in those areas of the body where the affected nerves are. The rash develop last.

These lesions to the skin are typically distributed in a strip pattern. The rash develops into painful blisters filled with a virus-infested serous liquid. During this blister period, patients can pass chickenpox to people who come in contact with these lesions, provided that they have never had chickenpox. After about ten days, these blisters begin to crust and the patient is no longer contagious. When these crusts fall off, the affected person is left with scars.

Treatment For Shingles

There is no known treatment to deal with shingles. However, there are methods to alleviate its symptoms and prevent potential complications. Antiviral drugs, like acyclovir and its variations, can help reduce the probability of developing post herpetic neuralgia and zoster sine herpete. As for the pain, conventional analgesics are ineffective, and for this reason topic anesthetics are often prescribed.

Vaccination For Shingles

There is a routinely administered chickenpox vaccine, called Varivax, which helps prevent chickenpox. Children and adults who have never had chickenpox are advised to receive this vaccine shot. There is another vaccine, called Zoltavax, designed for shingles. It’s basically the same, but this vaccine shot is intended for adults that have suffered from chickenpox and are in a situation of depressed immunization (such as elder people, or people under a lot of stress).

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