What Is Shingles and Postherpetic Neuralgia?
With no treatment would mean that these blisters would disappear in 3 to 5 weeks. Yes, this illness would make one very prickly and unpleasant; it is not something that healthy people should be worried about.
Shingles is caused by the varicella-zoster virus, the virus that also causes chickenpox. In a person who has been exposed to chickenpox — or its vaccine — the virus never really goes away. It can lie dormant in the body’s nerves. In most cases, it stays that way. But in some — especially people with immune systems weakened by disease or treatment — the virus can reappear. This is likely to happen years or decades after the person had chickenpox. When it comes back, the virus can cause shingles: a rash that often appears as a band on one side of the body. Early shingles symptoms can include: • Headache • Light sensitivity • Flu-like symptoms without fever Itching, tingling, or extreme pain where the rash is developing may come next, and the pain can be moderate to severe. Are you contagious? Though people who haven’t had chickenpox can catch that condition from you, the shingles itself isn’t contagious. For reasons that experts don’t really understand, the pain of shingles lingers f
