When young, many people suffer from chickenpox. That same virus can remain inactive in the body near the nerves of a person’s brain and spinal cord. Many years later, this virus can once again become active. Only this time, it comes in the form of shingles.
In many situations, suffering from shingles is not the most dangerous condition. Despite this, it can be incredibly painful. Shingles may only affect a small part of the body in many cases, but the ramifications are felt throughout the body. Shingles becomes dangerous with incorrect or slow treatment. This leads to troublesome complications. These complications are especially dangerous to people as they age. Some people may develop vision loss, inflammation of the brain, hearing problems, balance problems or facial paralysis. With the dangerous risk of complications, this makes quick recognition and treatment of shingles crucial.
Causes
As mentioned earlier, shingles is caused by the same virus as chickenpox. In some cases when someone recovers from chickenpox, the virus goes into the nervous system and hides dormant. It will eventually come back and affect the nervous system. It travels along the nerves to reach the skin. From there, the shingles rash develops.
Shingles occurs more commonly as a person ages. It’s thought that the natural weakening of the immune system over time may be why the virus comes back. It should be noted that the virus is very much contagious. People who have not suffered from chickenpox as children can get the virus. However, instead of suffering from shingles right away, they get chickenpox! It’s possible shingles can then occur later in life.
Symptoms
When it comes to shingles symptoms, the most obvious come from the rashes and blisters that occur in a specific area. Intense pain will occur in the area and it becomes very sensitive to the touch. Blisters in that area can occur, break open and then they scab over. These areas are incredibly itchy, which makes scratching and breaking the blisters common.
In some cases, there are some secondary symptoms that a person can deal with. Some may feel a headache or find they suffer from a fever. It’s also possible for some to feel sensitive to light and bright lights in particular. Fatigue can also occur.
Complications
As mentioned before, there are quite a few serious complications which can be the result of shingles. When it’s handled correctly, there’s far less chance of the complications from occurring. Some of the complications include:
- Vision Loss - When shingles occurs near the eye, it can in turn cause infections to those eyes. Those infections are painful and can result in vision loss.
- Postherpetic Neuralgia - This complication keeps the symptoms of shingles long after the actual blisters on the skin are done. The nerve fibers are damaged and keep sending painful responses to the brain.
- Skin Infections - When shingles blisters break, the open sores are very vulnerable to potential infections.
- Neurological Issues - There’s a wide number of different neurological issues that can occur from shingles complications. Inflammation of the brain is possible and dangerous. People may lose control of their balance or hearing. It’s also possible to suffer from troublesome facial paralysis.
Treatment
Unfortunately there’s currently no cure for shingles. This means treatment will be dependent upon dealing with the virus. Antiviral drugs are common as they can speed up the healing process. They also reduce the potential for the dangerous complications. The second method of treating shingles involves relief of the pain. There’s a wide variety of different medications and numbing agents that may be prescribed depending on the pain. Some may be taken orally, while others could be topical in nature. Treatment can last for a few weeks as the virus tends to last between two and six weeks in total.