Shingles Disease: Is Shingles Contagious?

What is Shingles disease?
Shingles (also known as Herpes Zoster or Zoster) is a medical condition in which painful blisters are developed on skin. Zoster is caused by a virus ‘Varicella Zoster Virus’ (VZV) that also causes chickenpox in humans. Any person who has had chickenpox in childhood is at the highest risk of developing Shingles disease.

If a person develops chickenpox, even after recovering from the disease, remains of the VZV virus still home in the patient’s body for the rest of his/her life. Shingles disease is also considered as revisiting chickenpox disease, which surfaces once the required conditions for the disease are met such as: patient is under stress or his/her immune system is damaged (certain medical conditions/disease cause significant damage to patient’s immune system such as AIDS) which gives way to the virus to attack the nervous system of patient. As it is chickenpox re-surfacing (shingles), it becomes more painful than its sister disease chickenpox that keeps annoying the patient even after the patient gets rid of painful blisters.

What are the symptoms of Shingles disease?

• Fever for a couple of (generally four to five) days with persistent headache (Most of these symptoms match with symptoms of influenza)
• Sudden decline in energy level (physical fatigue)
• Problems with digestive system, specifically with stomach
• Patients also experience sudden chills
• Itching on the area of body where rash start developing or will develop
• Development of small painful blister on patient’s skin (or skin rash) lined up like part of a belt/band starting from spine to chest is the most distinctive symptom that can help the doctor in outlining the conclusion.

What are the complications I might experience if I delay in seeking medical help for Shingles disease?
As there is no effective medication available on shingles disease (till the date) if it passes early stage and is in advance stage, people suffering from Shingles develop a painful condition called chronic neuralgia over the period as time passes by. In order to avoid this problem, you should be watchful and seek your physician’s help immediately once you think you have shingles disease or if you had shingles and you are experiencing pain in tissues even after getting rid of the blisters/rash caused by Shingles disease. This pain can be severe enough to make patient even cry, this condition is called post-herpetic neuralgia.

If not properly treated, shingles can lead (rarely) to more severe condition such as:

• The patient may loose eyesight
• Pneumonia
• Malfunctioning of some organs
• Patient may experience hearing problems
• As the disease is linked with nervous system, the patient may experience encephalitis (a condition in which patient experiences inflammation of brain)
• Sometimes the disease can become so severe, it can lead to death of the patient.

Who’s at the risk?

• As mentioned above, if a person who has had chickenpox and has recovered from it is at the highest risk of developing this disease.
• Generally people in their old age (above 50 years) are among the sufferers of shingles disease.
• Person suffering from any disease that causes damage to immune system (such as AIDS, cancer etc.) is at high risk, as Shingles disease surfaces mainly when the patient’s immune system is not operating at it’s full strength.
• Person undergoing extensive medication where he/she has to consume immunosuppressive drugs

Is Shingles a contagious disease?
Although the VZV virus that causes chickenpox and shingles disease can spread through the direct contact of any healthy person (who never had chickenpox in his/her life) with the open wounds/rashes/blisters of the patient suffering from shingles disease, Shingles is not a fully contagious disease.

A healthy person can never develop Shingles disease after he/she comes in informal contact (not involving much of physical contact, or a direct contact with the rash) with the patient suffering from Shingles, or sneezing or coughing of patient when the healthy person is in vicinity. The only phase when this disease is contagious is when the patient has developed blisters with clear fluid and the rash covering the blisters has not developed crusts.

Tips for the patients:

• Shingles is a contagious disease during the phase when patient develops blisters till the formation of crusts, patient should be careful to cover the blisters in order to stop the disease from spreading
• Follow the treatment regime strictly that your doctor has prescribed
• Avoid exposure to sunlight and keep patient in a cool and dry room
• Avoid scratching the area of rash