Who is at Risk for Shingles?

Anyone who has had the chickenpox infection is at risk for developing shingles. Other factors can increase your chance of infection, including:

• experiencing large amounts of stress
• being fatigued
• being over the age of 60
• having a weakened immune system (often due to cancer treatment, chronic diseases like fibromyalgia, or AIDS infection)

The Symptoms of Shingles
Symptoms of shingles virus generally begin to manifest about two to five days after infection. Initial shingles symptoms usually resemble those of the common cold, and may include nausea, fatigue, fever, and chills. As the shingles disease develops, more severe symptoms begin to develop including:

• itching of the skin
• numbness beneath the skin
• the appearance of a shingles rash on the body, which is made up of numerous tiny blisters
• severe and excruciating nerve and muscle pain

Complications of Shingles
Shingles can be a very nasty infection to have to deal with. Not only does it cause extremely painful nerve and muscle pain, but it can also reappear several times throughout your life. Many shingles sufferers develop a condition known as Postherpetic Neuralgia, which causes ongoing muscle and nerve pain. This condition occurs when the shingles virus has permanently damaged nerves in the body.

Treatments for Shingles
Shingles symptoms generally disappear within three to five weeks. However, treatment is recommended to help encourage shingles pain relief. Your health care provider can offer you oral antiviral medications, including acyclovir, valacyclovir, and famciclovir, in order to speed up the course of the shingles disease. You may also be prescribed pain relieving medications, such as ibuprofen and acetaminophen.