Shingles: The Facts

When we were kids, almost all of us had that annoying thing called the chicken pox. It wasn't fun, you got yelled at for scratching the chicken pox... and you didn't even touch a chicken so being a kid you have no clue how you got it... but the good thing was; you got to stay home from school. Here you are, decades later and you develop shingles; many people call it the adult version of the chicken pox... and you still haven't touched a chicken!

This is what happened to my grandmother a week before Thanksgiving this year. She's 82 years old, and one look at the contaminated area and it didn't look anything like chicken pox. But she was very weak, even disoriented and stated that it was very painful. So I decided to look into this... and here are the facts that everyone should know.

When you're a kid and get that dang chicken pox, it never goes away. It's a virus called varicella zoster and it actually sits quietly inactive in the nerve cells next to your spinal chord just waiting to erupt again. In most cases, it takes decades for it to do so.

If you remember chicken pox, it was everywhere on your body; and the more you scratched and touched other places on your body, the more it spread. Shingles is a bit different. Shingles actually occurs in an infections mob on one side of the body. In my Grams case, it attacked her hand and arm all the way up to her elbow and stopped. The rest of her body was fine.

If you have ever had chicken pox, you can get shingles, however, if you never had chicken pox as a child or if you have already gotten the vaccine for chicken pox, you can't get shingles, but you can get chicken pox. I've had chicken pox, but my boyfriend never had it. So we were a little afraid to go over there for the holiday. But we did find out that the virus can only be transmitted if you in contact with the fluid that develops in and around the blisters of the shingles. You can not be infected by the infected person coughing or breathing on you. Talk about a sigh of relief for having a delicious turkey dinner.

Adults over 60 years old are most prone for getting shingles because as we get older, our immune system tends to get weaker, therefore making us prone to rekindling this sitting duck virus. Not just adults over 60, but also those who have diseases at any age that affect their immune system, as well as those who have depression, and those who are suffering through a cold or even sunburn.

High stress is also a candidate for causing shingles to erupt, which this was the cause of them for my Grandmother. She started seeing the signs of shingles after she fell down a flight of stone stairs. Normally the stress has to be something of a strong and negative nature for it to cause the shingles to develop.

Singles normally lasts up to five weeks. This whole time you don't have the virus, after the first two weeks, the shingles virus starts to go away. It starts off as a rash and ends as a rash, but the middle stage of shingles is the ugliest time. Shingles show up as clusters or even scattered patches of swelling blisters, after two weeks they begin to scab over in the healing process.

My gram complained about intense pain, itching, upset stomach, chills, fever, headaches, and very irritated skin throughout three weeks of the shingles. Treatment is suggested, however it will go away by itself. Some people do have complications from shingles where they still have the severe pain even after the blisters are gone. In this type of complication my grams doctor told her that if it does occur, it can last for a few months up to even a few years. Of course this is something to hope does not happen. Good news of course, you can't die from shingles, but shingles complications can evolve into other types of conditions and or infest internal organs if not treated properly.

Also you want to avoid children being around someone that is infected with shingles. My two cousins are both hemophiliacs and their doctor had a fit when they found out my gram had shingles and told my Uncle not to have my gram anywhere near the kids. Children can get shingles and they are contagious and can pass on chickenpox or shingles to others.

Whether you're a child or an adult, if you have shingles, make sure that you keep the area completely covered. This will prevent accidental contact with the shingles as well as help with the healing process. And, do not touch food if you have shingles.

During our Thanksgiving dilemma, the doctor did tell my grandmother to hand over the dinner duties to someone else in the slight risk that she would touch food and pass it on to everyone. Shingles can form anywhere on the body, most common areas are the face, arm, hand, leg, chest, stomach, or butt area.

Many different medications are used to treat shingles. My gram was given Famvir which was to be taken for two weeks and is an antiviral medication that may help decrease the rash and pain of the shingles. But just as a warning to those of you who do get a prescription from your doctor for antiviral treatments such as this, you can't get the generic kind and Medicare doesn't fully cover it. Fourteen pills cost my grandma $65 even with Medicare. It's been 14 days and according to my gram, the pills didn't do anything. So make sure that you let your doctor know when something is working or not.

When you do check with your doctor for treating shingles, make sure that you ask him about treatments to fight the virus and also the pain; some doctors only treat one or the other. Tylenol is a really good choice for fighting the shingles intense pain, but again consults your doctor on what is best for you.

In conclusion, if you start developing a rash that doesn't go away in three days or so, see your doctor. If it is shingles, keep it covered, take your meds, tell your doctor all of your symptoms, stay away from the kids, and DO NOT touch any food! You'll more than likely be back to normal in about five weeks!