Do You Know What Causes Shingles??
Imagine you have an itch...an uncomfortable rash...a painful burning that won’t go away. Imagine being blistered on much of your body, and having visible redness. If you are experiencing symptoms like this, you may very well be one of the many who contract an illness known as shingles. For those who have this affliction, there are many questions they would like to have answered. What can I do about this?? How long will it last?? Can it come back?? And there is one more: How did I get this in the first place?? To understand this, then, we must examine just what causes shingles to begin with. When you are younger, you may have contracted chicken pox and gone through that for a brief time before recovery. What a lot of people are unaware of, however, is that chicken pox is caused by a virus called varicella zoster – a virus that never actually leaves the body once chicken pox goes away. Instead, it remains in the body, lying dormant permanently in most people. But for some, once they get older, something may trigger the reawakening of the virus – and when this happens, the virus spreads into the spinal cord, where it will travel through the nerves and flare up, causing a rash to develop in most sufferers. In addition, this rash will appear as blisters in a pattern on one side of your body. The flare up is part of what causes shingles to be a particularly painful affliction. Sometimes, people with shingles don’t develop the rash. However, they usually do – and typically, the rash lasts for a period of three to five weeks, as do the pain and discomfort. In some cases, shingles can turn into a chronic condition called postherpetic neuralgia and leave you with long-term pain. Also, shingles may be a very threatening condition for anyone with a seriously compromised immune system due to those who undergo radiation to fight cancer, or have organ transplants, or suffer from HIV. Causes of shingles can include weakened immune systems, such as those in people with HIV, Hodgkin’s, or leukemia. Those who end up with shingles may see symptoms develop like headaches or fever, itching and burning, chills, nausea, shooting pains in the face or body (most often on one particular side). You may experience a lot of sensitivity due to a certain nerve becoming flared; this nerve is most often one along the trunk of the body. Whenever the causes of shingles create this affliction, it can be mistaken for other illnesses, such as kidney stones and gallstones, along with fatigue, heat rash, and other things that would seem as if you had some other illness altogether. So now that we’ve figured out some of what causes shingles, what can we do to alleviate it?? There are different ways of treating the disease – such as ointments and creams, as well as a vaccine that is FDA-approved in some people. You must consult your dermatologist and your physician to figure out the best way to treat your case of shingles. It is possible for you to gain control of our situation and take steps toward living a comfortable life.
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