Shingles Facts

Here are some facts you need to know about the shingles.

It is an infection limited to a small area. This means the virus will not take root on different parts of your body. This virus would choose one specific skin nerve, take root there, and stay there.

It is the same virus that causes you to have chickenpox, if you have already had this in the past, or when you were younger. Shingles reactivates this dormant virus. Why it becomes active again, no one knows, and studies have been and is constantly being made, but no results are found as of yet. Shingles can manifest itself many, many years you have had chickenpox, even at times, after decades.

You have to know that a weakened immune system would most likely activate the dormant virus. The elderly and those undergoing medical conditions would likely activate this dormant virus as well.

Getting in contact with a person who you think has the shingles, or even if you get in contact with someone who has it, would not cause another person's "sleeping" virus become active. But a patient with shingles may be the cause of chickenpox for who has not experienced chickenpox yet.

Most common symptom would be the tingling feeling on the skin, which would include itchiness that comes with stabbing pain. A rash then would appear after a few days...say in four to five days, where in this rash would form a band or patch occurring only on the side of the trunk or on one side of your face. This will then build up blisters filled with fluid. Within a few days, the blisters would dry out, and form into crust. At its peak, these blisters would be mildly itchy to becoming severely painful. In three to five weeks, the pain and the blisters and crust, would then disappear.

One good news is that past infection would make a person immune. People who have had the shingles would only have one episode in their entire lifetime, but some...and those who have medical conditions, and those who are not fit and healty may have episodes that would keep repeating in one's lifetime. Impaired immune systems, that is, people who have the AIDS virus, those with cancer or leukemia, may have to endure repeated attacks.

Shingles is treated by letting them on their own, that is, without any specific treatment. What doctors can do is to recommend some anti-viral medications for cases that are too serious, and on individuals who have a weak immune system.