Category: Your Health With Beth
Tags: blisters, chickenpox, contagious, itch, painful, rash, shingles, vaccine, varicella

Have A Painful Itch?

HealthyU: Shingles

Shingles, (and I’m not talking about the kind on the top of your house),  is a very painful rash caused by the varicella-zoster virus, the same virus that causes chickenpox.  After someone has had chickenpox, the virus remains inactive in the nerve tissues near the spinal cord and brain.  Years later, even many years later,  the virus can reappear as shingles.  In fact, shingles is most common in older adults or people who have weakend immune systems because of stress, injury, medications or other reasons.

Shingles  usually affect only a small section of one side of your body.  Common  symptoms include pain, which is usually the first symptom, burning, numbness or tingling, a red rash that begins several days after the pain and fluid filled blisters that burst and then crust over.  Some people with shingles also may experience itching,  fever/chills, headache, achiness and fatigue.  Shingles is considered contagious while the blisters are open and if someone has direct contact with them.  Once the blisters are crusted over, you are no longer considered contagious.

There is no cure for shingles, however, there are antiviral medications that may be prescribed by your doctor that can speed the healing and reduce your risk of complications.  It is advised by the Centers of Disease Control (CDC), for anyone over age 50, to have two vaccines, the varicella (chickenpox) vaccine and the varicella-zoster (shingles) vaccine. By having both does not guarentee that you will never get chickenpox or shingles, however,  these vaccines do reduce your chances of complications and reduce the severity of the disease.

For more information on the shingles vaccine, visit www.cdc.gov

About the Author: Beth Barranco, RN, BSN

Beth Barranco graduated from the University of South Carolina at Aiken in 2000 with an Associate Degree in Nursing and completed her Bachelor's in 2004. Ms. Barranco has worked since 2003 in an open heart and vascular recovery unit and has participated as a part-time clinical instructor teaching senior level, critical care nursing students at USCA. In 2007, while maintaining a position as a staff nurse in open heart recovery, she was hired by a neighboring hospital to help develop the heart transplant program. Ms. Barranco was extensively involved in educating potential transplant patients and their families, being an advocate during the transplant process, as well as assisting in post transplant care. In 2009, Ms. Barranco took on another role as the medical/nurse correspondent for her current employer. She researches and writes about current medical topics each week for the segment titled "HealthyU" aired on Tuesdays at 6:25am on the local NBC affiliate in Augusta, Ga, WAGT-ch.26. Recently, she has taken her role as a medical correspondent to a web show titled "Turn Up The AC" hosted by Kenny Adams, co-owner of Augusta's Choice. Each week she and Kenny discuss important health topics and answer viewer questions. This can be seen LIVE each Tuesday from 12:30p-1:30p on www.UStream.com/augustaschoice or on www.augustaschoice.com. Ms. Barranco is very active with several social media outlets, such as Twitter and Facebook. She maintains a current blog for Augusta's Choice and is a contributor to Differences Magazine, a new online teen magazine. It can be found at www.differencesmag.com. Follow Beth on Facebook and Twitter by searching bbarrancoRN.