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2006-07-09 10:20:08 · 17 answers · asked by mick j 2 in Health Diseases & Conditions Infectious Diseases

17 answers

Hmmm... you get SHINGLES is one.

Shingles is a disease caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox. After you have chickenpox, the chickenpox virus remains inactive in your body in certain nerves. If the virus does become active again, usually later in life, it causes shingles. If you’ve had chickenpox, you are at risk for shingles. More than 90% of adults in the United States have had chickenpox.

A recent study estimated that up to 1 million cases of shingles occur every year in the United States.2 Most of the people who get shingles are older than 50 years of age. As the population ages, the number of shingles cases will most likely increase.

You can come down with a case of shingles at any time, without warning. Usually the first sign is an itchy or painful feeling on a single area of your body. This will be followed by a rash, which turns into fluid-filled blisters. Even before the rash appears, the pain can be moderate to severe. Pain before the rash may be confused with the pain of glaucoma, a heart attack, kidney stones or appendicitis, and other conditions. This can sometimes make shingles difficult to diagnose early on.

Long-term nerve pain, called postherpetic neuralgia or PHN, is the most common complication of shingles. The pain can range from tenderness, burning, or throbbing to pain that is stabbing, shooting, or sharp. This pain can last for months, sometimes even for years.

The pain of shingles can affect your daily living and your emotional health and well being.

2006-07-09 10:23:02 · answer #1 · answered by ndtaya 6 · 7 0

Shingles causes a painful rash of small blisters that typically appear on the body, often in a band on the chest and back. The virus that causes shingles is called varicella zoster. This is also the virus that causes chickenpox.

The first symptom of shingles is often over-sensitivity or burning sensation on the skin in the affected area. After a few days, a rash develops. It usually appears as a band, following the route of a nerve under the skin.

At first, the rash consists of small red spots and reddened skin in the same area. The spots then turn into small blisters, which dry up after a few days, and gradually form scabs. Once the scabs have fallen off, a small pock-mark may be left.

Shingles is often a painful condition. As the virus affects the nerves, the pain may continue after the rash has cleared, sometimes lingering for weeks, months or even years. This is called post-herpetic neuralgia. It is more likely in older people and in people who had a severe rash.

Shingles can affect the face near the eye. If this happens an ophthalmologist (specialist eye doctor) should be consulted because the surface of the eye can be scarred, which can damage vision.

Shingles can also affect the ear, causing earache, dizziness, deafness and paralysis in the face. This is called Ramsay Hunt syndrome. Pain usually improves after about 48 hours, but occasionally hearing can be permanently impaired.

Encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) is a very rare complication of shingles. Symptoms can include high fever and confusion

2006-07-10 07:08:30 · answer #2 · answered by justasiam29 5 · 1 0

The first sign of shingles is often burning or tingling pain, or sometimes numbness, in or under the skin. The individual may also feel ill with fever, chills, headache, or stomach upset. After several days, a rash of small fluid-filled blisters, reminiscent of chickenpox, appears on reddened skin. The pain associated with shingles can be intense and is often described as "unrelenting." People with lesions on the torso may feel spasms of pain at the gentlest touch or breeze. The blisters are usually limited to a band, called dermatomes, spanning one side of the trunk, around the waistline, or clustered on one side of the face.

The distribution of the shingles spots is a telltale clue to where the chickenpox virus has been hiding since the initial infection. Scientists now know that the shingles lesions correspond to the dermatome supplied by a specific sensory nerve that exits from the brain or spinal cord.

For the majority of healthy individuals, this second bout with the chickenpox virus is almost always a second triumph of the body's immune system. The shingles attack may last longer than chickenpox, and the patient may need medication for pain, but in most cases the body has the inner resources to fight back. The lesions heal, the pain subsides within 3 to 5 weeks, and for most patients the blisters leave no scars.

2006-07-10 18:06:40 · answer #3 · answered by purple 6 · 0 0

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2016-05-02 20:13:58 · answer #4 · answered by ? 3 · 0 0

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2016-09-01 02:52:21 · answer #5 · answered by ? 3 · 0 0

Shingles causes a painful rash of small blisters that typically appear on the body, often in a band on the chest and back. The virus that causes shingles is called varicella zoster. This is the virus that causes chickenpox.

After having chickenpox, the varicella virus lies dormant in the spinal cord. If the virus reactivates in the spinal cord it causes shingles.

Chickenpox is very common in children, and usually only causes mild illness. Once someone has had chickenpox, they are immune to further infection. However, the varicella zoster virus which causes chickenpox remains in the body for life.

Normally, the varicella virus lies dormant and does not cause health problems. But if the immune system, which normally protects the body against infection, is weakened the virus can reactivate. When reactivated, it causes shingles, which can be more serious than chickenpox.

I hope that this is useful. Please stay at home!

2006-07-09 10:23:25 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

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No, that's not shingles. Shingles is a re-activation of the chicken pox virus. If you have chicken pox as a child, your body stores the virus in your spine. The location where on the spine (nerve), shows when the virus re-activates. Shingles starts with a rash that wraps the body along same line as the storage area. It starts out a little itchy, and becomes intolerable. Without treatment, permenant nerve damage can occur. It sounds like you could have anything from a simple skin rash to common warts. If it really bothers you, see your doctor.

2016-04-12 23:06:53 · answer #7 · answered by ? 4 · 0 0

Shingles has 2 stages:
The prodromal stage — symptoms occur about 2 to 5 days before the rash appears.
The eruptive stage — skin rash (lesions) appears.
Symptoms that may appear during the prodromal stage include:
Numbness, tingling, itching, or pain in the place where the rash is about to appear
Fever, sometimes with chills
Headache
Nausea
The main symptoms of the eruptive stage involve a skin rash, which usually involves:
Redness of the skin followed by swelling or bumps.
From the bumps, blisters then form that contain clear fluid. The blisters become pustules (pimple-like sores) and crusts (scabs).
- The rash almost always appears in a band or patch on just one side of the body.
Any part of the body can be involved, including the back, chest, abdomen, arms, legs, or face.
Symptoms may range from only mildly bothersome to itchy to really painful.
New blisters may continue to appear for up to 5 days.
Within 14 days, a scab forms.
The rash usually goes away in about 3 to 5 weeks.

2006-07-09 10:28:23 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

Shingles, the common name for the virus Varicella Zoster, is introduced to our system along with chickenpox. Most people carry this virus and it stays dormant; but for 10-20% of the population, it erupts during weakened immunity or increased anxiety. Shingles brings mild to severe pain, some flu-like symptoms, and most recognizably, blisters in a line or wedge on only one side of the body. Most shingles outbreaks subside in two to three weeks.

The first signs of shingles, on the first to fourth day, are headache, upset stomach, fever, chills, and fatigue, similar to coming down with a cold or flu. By the third to fourth day, a certain body part will begin to ache, prickle, or hurt, with tender, sensitive skin accompanied by redness or a bumpy rash. This could occur on the face, torso, back, and hips, or even the neck, arms, and legs. Around the fifth day, blistering on the skin develops along a nerve, which is why the shape of the rash is always a stripe, line, or triangle. The nerve carries pain to the affected area, varying from a dull ache, to intense, shooting spasms. At this point, a physician can usually make a correct diagnosis.

From here, the blisters worsen over the next week, filling with pus and weeping. At this stage, it is important to keep the skin clean and dry, even applying compresses and wrapping the area in bandages to prevent a bacterial infection. Soon, from ten days to two weeks of the onset of shingles, the blisters will drain and scab over as they begin to heal. The pain will continue during this period, gradually lessening as the scabs diminish. Longer, more serious breakouts, especially in those with severely reduced immunity such as AIDS patients, might cause swollen lymph nodes and a continued cycle of blistering, developing postherpetic neuralgia.

While shingles usually has to run its course, you should seek immediate medical attention if the rash erupts anywhere near your eyes, ears, mouth, or nose. These extremely sensitive areas can suffer lasting damage if not treated early, even causing temporary or permanent blindness. A doctor can prescribe anti-viral and anti-bacterial medication to make the bout as mild as possible.

2006-07-09 10:23:49 · answer #9 · answered by pinkruth1976 3 · 0 0

What is shingles?

Shingles (herpes zoster) is a viral infection of the nerve roots. It causes pain and a band of rashthat spreads on one side of your body. Shingles is most common in older adults and people who have weakened immune systems because of stress, injury, certain medications, or other factors.

What causes shingles?

Shingles is caused by the reactivation of the virus (varicella-zoster virus) that causes chickenpox. After you recover from chickenpox, the virus lies dormant (inactive) in your nerve roots. In some people, it stays dormant for the rest of their lives. In others, the virus reactivates when disease, stress, or aging weakens the immune system.1 The cause of reactivation of the virus is unclear; however, once it does reactivate, it causes shingles, not another case of chickenpox. Most people who get shingles will not get the disease again, although it does come back in a few people.

2006-07-09 11:52:43 · answer #10 · answered by fromprince2king 2 · 0 0

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