Shingles: Beware of Your Skin Health

Chickenpox!! It is weird if there are people who do not know what chickenpox is. Have you ever felt sick but you don’t know what makes you really feel it. You try to find it out but you see no sign in your body. You feel sick inside. I have experienced it once in my life. Before I know that I had that disease, I got a fever. I thought it was just a simple fever so I just let it go. After that I felt hurt at my nerves especially at waist. I thought it was caused by sleeping on the floor. I just put balm at that part. After two days, I felt really hurt at my nerves. I felt like I am an old people. I asked my friend to give a massage but it was still hurt until I asked my friend to give punch at my waist. I felt comfortable at that moment.

Don’t think that if you had a chickenpox you will be free from other skin disease problems. You still need to be aware with other disease that comes out from the same virus of chicken pox. This virus is not clear yet from your immune system. This virus name Varicella zoster virus. But after you have shingles you will not get it again. This disease is called shingles (herpes zoster). Shingles is a viral infection of the nerve roots. This skin problem is an extremely a painful rash. After your chicken pox was healed, this virus still stays in your nerves. In other words, this virus sleeps for a while. It will come out again as herpes zoster if your immune is weak or sometimes it is because you are emotional stress. The reactivation of this virus will cause nerve irritation. The rash will not appear at whole body like chickenpox but it will appear in a limited area on side of the body. It not just only rashes but it come with blisters. The blisters will develop more and that individual will feel a great pain. Individual who have a potential to get shingles are people who had chicken pox before. It is rare to see people at our age getting shingles.

Do you know who is at risk for shingles? Usually, people who have the potential to get shingles are people being older than 50. Besides, people who have a weakened immune system could get the shingles too due to other diseases like diabetes or HIV infection.

Now we know what shingles (herpes zoster) is and who might get it. Let us move on to the symptoms of the shingles. Shingles symptoms happen in stages. There are three stages. First stage is called Prodromal stage which happens before the rash appears. In this stage, we are still not aware that we are getting herpes zoster because the symptoms are not worrying us so much. Several days or weeks before a rash come out; we will feel pain, burning, tickling, tingling or numbness in the area around the effected nerves. The patients usually feel discomfort on the chest or back, but it may occur on the abdomen, head, face, neck or one arm or leg. What I had experienced was like I am having the flu but I do not have fever. This is also one of the symptoms for shingles.

When rash and blisters appear, patients are moving to the second stage of the symptoms. It is called active stage. In this stage, only one side of the body, the left or right will appear with a band, strip, or small area of rash. The blisters fill with fluid. It will start with small blister that are red base and then it will continuing to form new blisters. At first, fluid look clear but after three or four days, it becomes cloudy. The patient has to bear the pain because it takes two or three weeks for the blisters to heal and may be it leaves scars. You do not worry about the scar because it can remove but the pain of shingles is more hurt. The pain can be described like, “piercing needles in the skin”. Can you imagine it how I feel it when I had shingles at that moment?

The last stage is called Postherpetic neuralgia which is the chronic pain stage. It is the most common complication of shingles. At least, it takes 30 days or may continue for months to years. There also symptoms in this stage like aching, burning in the area of the earlier rash. It is extremely sensitive when it touches with something. Depression may exist when the patient difficult to do their daily activities.

At this moment, you have know the symptoms of shingles and you always can check yourself if you feel uneasy when rashes appear. The thing that you have to know is no cure for refraining shingles but do not be panic because there are treatments to help the patient. The treatment can help to shorten the length of illness and also can prevent complications. In a way to shorten duration for shingles, you are given antiviral medicines such as acyclovir, famciclovir. Acyclovir is effective antiviral. It is five daily oral doses. The doctor also gives antidepressants to help reduce pain during an attack of shingles. Beside, antibiotic is given to stop infection of the blisters and it is applied directly to the skin.

You are not likely to be like other people if you have shingles because you have to avoid with other people when you in infection. You have to wait until the rash heals. Shingles is contagious especially to people who have not had chicken pox yet. People cannot catch shingles from someone else once they have had chickenpox. They have potential to develop shingles later in life.

If you think you have shingles, you should consult the doctor as soon as possible. Now you know that shingles comes from the same virus of chicken pox and the symptoms happen by a few stages. There is no way of avoiding shingles but there are some available treatments to reduce the pain.