Monthly Health Articles Archive

Shingles Prevention and Treatment

Chicken pox is a common illness among children that many people have personally encountered, either as a child or a parent.  The treatment and prevention of shingles, a close cousin of the chicken pox, is often not as familiar to people.  Shingles is a viral infection that typically affects people age 60 and older.  Also called herpes zoster, shingles often appears as a band of blisters in the back and chest area, and can spread to other areas of the body as well, such as the neck, face and scalp.  While it isn’t a life threatening disease, shingles can be quite painful.  Although shingles usually clear in two or three weeks, sometimes even after the rash disappears the skin can remain painful and sensitive for months. 

Anyone who has had the chickenpox has the potential of developing shingles, as both are caused by the varicella-zoster virus.  After having the chicken pox as a child, the virus can lay dormant in your nerves and then reemerge later as shingles.  The best method of prevention against shingles is the varicella-zoster vaccine called Zostavax.  Just as with the chicken pox vaccine, the vaccine doesn’t guarantee that you won’t get shingles.  However, it will likely reduce the complications that can arise from shingles, as well as the severity of the disease. 

This vaccine is recommended for all adults over 60 years of age, regardless of whether or not they have had shingles in the past.  It is given in the form of a shot, prescribed by a doctor, and does not need to be given more than once.  The vaccine is used for prevention and is not meant to as a treatment for those who currently have shingles.

A person with shingles does need to be careful about passing the varicella-zoster virus onto others.  Direct contact with the open sores of the shingles rash could infect a person who hasn’t had chickenpox before.  The infected person would likely develop chicken pox in that case, and not shingles.  Until the blisters scab over it’s best to avoid physical contact with people with weak immune systems, pregnant women and newborn babies, in addition to those who have never had the chicken pox, as the virus could cause serious complications for them.  The varicella-zoster virus cannot be spread to another person who has already had the chicken pox, assuming that person has a normal immune system.

The shingles vaccine is a good preventative measure for most adults over 60 years of age, however there are a few groups of people that we recommend do not receive it, including people that currently have a weakened immune system, those with a history of bone marrow or lymphatic cancer, people receiving medical treatments involving steroids, radiation and chemotherapy, people with active, untreated tuberculosis and those that have ever experienced a life-threatening allergic reaction to gelatin, neomycin or any other component of the shingles vaccine.

For more information about shingles or the shingles vaccine, talk with your health care providers or contact Kossuth Regional Health Center at 515-295-2451.

-Jennifer VonBank is a certified physician assistant
at the KRHC Bancroft Clinic