Shingles is Not a Fully Contagious Disease
Shingles is a sister disease of chickenpox and is more annoying in nature. Let us understand what shingles disease is and what are the symptoms of shingles disease ….
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
| By Nilesh Parekh |
Understanding Shingles Pain as a Symptom
As with shingles disease, there is no clear cure for shingles pain that has progressed to PHN. It is possible though to ease this chronic shingles pain and possibly even prevent it.
Shingles – Causes, Symptoms and Treatment
If non-medical solutions do not help, proceed with the next step of obtaining professional treatment. There are many different options for shingles treatment, including antiviral medications.
Shingles natural treatment and natural shingles treatment talk …
Listen to drdennisclarks online radio show about shingles natural treatment and natural shingles treatment Shingles natural treatment summary.
Needing Treatment of Herpes and Causes
They can act as a trigger to reactivate the new Herpes simplex virus causing the symptoms of the rash of shingles.
Natural Shingles Treatment
So many products on how to control shingles with natural treatments flood the market that it sometimes seems impossible to sort out which ones are good and which ones are not.
Shingles Treatment
Chicken Pox/Shingles Treatment. Vitamins A and C are the vitamin treatment of choice. Chickenpox can require large doses, but Shingles requires much larger doses.
Mail this postRelated videos:
[...] During the first symptom, as the rash is absent, the diagnosis may go wrong. Migraine headache, heart attack, appendicitis, lower back problem, internal disorder or the pain of an ulcer may be inferred. The appearance of groups of blisters on a red base is a clear-cut symptom of shingles. Usually, the rash appears on the trunk, neck and back. However, it may also be seen on the eye, the face and the tip of the nose. The blisters traverse the path of the individual nerves that have come from the spinal cord. This is called as the dermatomal pattern. Along the path of the nerve, some areas are covered with blisters, while some areas are not. Usually, only one nerve is involved, but rarely more than one are also relevant. Sometimes it does happen that blisters do not appear at all and there is only pain. This proves to be a very confusing case of local pain. [...]
[...] The shingles disease is associated with a slight fever, headache, pain and burning sensation, itching sensation, weakness, loss of appetite and a feeling of numbness. And then, slowly but surely the rashes will start to appear all over the body. These rashes are much like the one’s in chicken pox. The pain, frequency of rashes and the other symptoms can differ from one person to another in degree. [...]