Medical Condition of Shingles

I had just got back from work and was busy lazing around the house. I was feeling a bit under the weather as I felt feverish and had a bad headache. I felt a burning sensation was developing suddenly on the right side of my waist and I started to scratch my back. I felt a rash running right across my lower back from waist. I called for my mom who was flabbergasted at the redness and rash. She immediately took me to see a doctor. The doctor misdiagnosed my rash as chickenpox. (I kept arguing, I had suffered from chickenpox in childhood, so it is not possible to again be infected by the same disease. But why would a medical graduate listen to a microbiologist like me!). This was because I had some rash developed on my ears that made him believe it was chickenpox.

Any ways, after three days, my lower back was full of red blisters that had now reached the left side of waist. It was painful and to add to my misery I could not sleep on my back and found it difficult to sit. I was running a high fever and became very weak. The burning sensation was killing me and the blisters felt tingling. Finally, another medical practitioner diagnosed my condition correctly and treated me with the appropriate medicines. So, you must be wondering what was I suffering from? I was suffering from shingles also known as herpes zoster. Let me explain in detail about the medical condition of shingles.

Shingles Causes
Shingles is a skin rash that is caused by a virus called Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV). This is the same virus that causes chickenpox and belongs to the family of Herpes viruses. Shingles causes are very strange and unique. Once a person is infected with chickenpox, the virus is not eliminated completely from the body, after overcoming the infection. Instead, the virus quietly makes home in the nervous system and stays there forever.

When the body is under stress like emotional stress, immune system is compromised or the body is infected with AIDS, cancer or one is undergoing chemotherapy, the virus reverts back to its virulent self. Many times the shingles causes is unknown as the virus may reactivate itself without any apparent factor.

So, if you have ever been infected with chickenpox and developed the nasty blisters around the body, you are at risk of developing shingles. Shingles can even affect people who are over 60 years of age and rarely occurs in children under the age of 10 years. The risk of a younger child developing shingles increases when he contracts the chickenpox virus when he is 1-year-old or the mother develops chickenpox when pregnant.

Shingles Symptoms
If the varicella zoster virus gets activated, the first shingles symptoms that you may experience are skin rash, upset stomach, fever, chills and headache. These shingles symptoms are an indications that you soon develop the shingles rash. The rash will develop only in those areas of the body that are connected to the nerve cells where the varicella virus was lying dormant after the chickenpox infection. Therefore, you will develop a rash on one side or section of the body like the chest, back, buttocks, neck, face and scalp.

The area where the shingles rash appears is called the dermatome. The dermatome appears to have a rash that looks like a band or belt-like pattern on the skin. Therefore, it is many times referred to as 'devil's whip'. The rash develops small blisters that cause the following effects :

• The fluid-filled blisters form small ulcers that dry out and crust within a few days.
• The rash usually involves the torso area like the stomach or chest.
• Sometimes the rash develops on the face, mouth and ears.
• The blister may pop and ooze the fluid inside.
• The duration of the rash may be for three to four weeks.
• Sometimes, one may feel only the pain, without the development of blisters.

Complications from Shingles
Many times, some individuals may develop certain complications from shingles that may be minor or very severe reactions. One may develop a minor skin infection that will clear off with medical treatment. But a severe condition includes postherpetic neuralgia. After the blisters clear, the pain due to shingles continues to be felt by some individuals. This is postherpetic neuralgia, that occurs when the damaged nerve fibers send confused signals of pain from the skin to the brain. The doctor may prescribe pain and anticonvulsants medications to help your get relief from the pain.

In extreme conditions, when shingles affect the area in and around the eye, it may lead to ophthalmic shingles. Shingles in the eyes is a very painful condition that causes eye infections that may lead to loss of vision. Many times, depending on the nerve affected, shingles may cause encephalitis, hearing problems, Ramsay Hunt syndrome and facial paralysis in some individuals.

Treatment of Shingles
The medical condition of shingles usually heals on its own within a few weeks. But prompt medical care is required, to help speedy recovery and decrease the risk of complications from shingles. The doctor may prescribe antiviral drugs like Acyclovir, Valacyclovir, Famciclovir, etc. These medications are to be taken, within the first 72 hours of the appearance of shingles symptoms. In my case, I was prescribed these medications quite late, and therefore my rash had taken longer time to heal.

Pain management includes narcotic drugs like oxycodone, tricyclic antidepressants and numbing agents administered in the form of cream, gel, spray or skin patch. Many times calamine lotion also helps to decrease the burning sensation and to provide pain relief from shingles.

Home Remedies for Shingles
You may experience different levels of pain and therefore you may feel tired and weak. You need to take ample rest and avoid any physical stress. You should take a cool bath or apply wet compress to help reduce the heat and burning sensation of the blisters. You can take over the counter medications like ibuprofen, antihistamines and apply anti-itch creams and calamine lotions.

Prevention of Shingles
You can prevent shingles in young children by administering them with chickenpox vaccine (Varivax), if they have never developed chickenpox. An adult who has never struck by chickenpox may also take the chickenpox vaccine. Although, the vaccine will not guarantee 100% protection against chickenpox, it will however reduce the chances of developing chickenpox and reduce its severity.

In case of shingles, one can prevent the shingles rash by taking Zosravax vaccine. Shingles vaccine helps prevent occurrence of shingles in adults up to the age of 60 and above. Just as Varivax does not provide 100% protection, Zosravax too, just decreases the chances of developing shingles and reducing the severity of the rash.

Is Shingles Contagious?
Many people have one fear in their mind about, regarding 'is shingles contagious'. The answer is a definite yes and you need to keep the infected child or adult away from people who have never developed chickenpox. This is because they might develop chickenpox instead of shingles. You should remember, a person who has developed chickenpox in life will never contract the shingles infections from someone else. But they are at risk of developing shingles symptoms later on in life.

A person infected with shingles is most contagious when there are new blisters forming and old blisters healing. Also, when the blisters are crusting or healing, it is a very contagious stage as the crusts contain the virus. Once the crusting period is over, the virus loses it virulence and is no longer contagious.

Herpes zoster or medical condition of shingles is a very painful disease. You can never predict when you may develop symptoms of shingles. It is always better to maintain a healthy immune system. Make sure you visit the doctor and follow his advise. Keep out of moving in public and stay away from children in your home who have never been infected by chickenpox. Even if they are vaccinated, prevention is always better than cure. I hope this article on medical condition of shingles has helped clear all doubts pertaining to this disease.