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By Valerie J. Andrews, September 2018 

“It started with a visit to my chiropractor, who said, ‘You have shingles.’ A follow-up visit to my primary care physician confirmed it. It was too late for a vaccine, so I couldn’t do anything but ride it out.

“The rash ran along the nerves across my lower back, at the belt line. It was the middle of summer, and it was uncomfortable to wear clothes. It started with burning and itching sensations. When the pustules erupted on my skin, I just had to suffer through until they healed, leaving scars.”

That’s how one shingles sufferer described his experience with the disease. Nearly 50 years after surviving an array of childhood diseases, one – chicken pox – came back to haunt him.

Shingles look a lot like chicken pox. In fact, the two diseases are linked.

What are shingles?

“Shingles is a reactivation of the chicken pox virus, which is latent in your body’s nerve tissue life long after primary infection,”  says Joseph Dalovisio, M.D., associate medical director for medical specialties at Ochsner Health System in New Orleans, where he specializes in infectious diseases.

Shingles, also known as herpes zoster, is spread by a virus. You can’t get shingles by coming in contact with someone who has it. According to Dr. Dalovisio,  because the infection is a reactivation of an internal latent infection, “[it] doesn’t correlate with exposure to others with shingles.” He says there are no lifestyles or diets that affect our ability to get or avoid it. Men and women are affected equally.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about a million people suffer from the disease each year, and Dr. Dalovisio notes that a third of all individuals who had chickenpox will get shingles in their lifetimes.

People who suffer from shingles often get pain or itching symptoms 1-5 days before the rash appears. Rashes appear on the left or right side of the body but can occur on the face and may affect the eyes, causing vision problems. Other symptoms include fever, headache, chills and an upset stomach. According to the Louisiana Department of Health, “Very rarely, shingles can lead to pneumonia, hearing problems, blindness, brain inflammation (encephalitis) or death.”

Can you prevent shingles?

The CDC recommends healthy adults age 50 and over get a vaccine to protect against shingles and postherpetic neuralgia (PHN), a burning sensation resulting from shingles that may last months or years. Dr. Dalovisio and the CDC recommend Shingrix, approved by the FDA in 2017. Shingrix is a two-dose vaccine, taken over a period of 2-6 months.

Dr. Dalovisio says, “The new vaccine can be given to those with weakened immune systems (such as patients on corticosteroids, immune suppressive treatments for illnesses, cancer chemotherapy patients, or HIV patients).

The original shingles vaccine could not be given to these types of patients as it was a weakened live viral vaccine. The new vaccine (trade name Shingrix) has no live virus in it, thus [it’s] able to be used in this population.” The only people who shouldn’t get Shingrix, according to Dr. Dalovisio, are those allergic to the vaccine’s ingredients.

Things to avoid

If you have shingles, avoid touching or scratching the rash. Wash your hands – often. Avoid contact with people whose immune systems are compromised by chemotherapy, organ transplant or HIV. Also, avoid pregnant women who have not had chickenpox or the chickenpox vaccine and premature or low-birth-weight babies.

The good news is, once you’ve had shingles, odds are you won’t get it again. The Louisiana Department of Health reports, “ Most commonly, a person has only one episode of shingles in his/her lifetime. Although rare, a second or even third case of shingles can occur.”