Shingles Pictures : What is Shingles

Shingles , commonly known as herpes zoster (or simply zoster) and also known as zona, is a viral disease characterized by a painful skin rash with blisters in a limited area on one side of the body (left or right), often in a stripe. The initial infection with varicella zoster virus (VZV) causes the acute, short-lived illness chickenpox which generally occurs in children and young adults. Once an episode of chickenpox has resolved, the virus is not eliminated from the body and can go on to cause Shingles often many years after the initial infection. Shingles is not the same disease as herpes simplex, despite the name similarity; both the varicella zoster virus and herpes simplex virus belong to the same viral subfamily Alphaherpesvirinae.



After the initial episode of chickenpox resolves, the varicella zoster virus remains latent in the nerve cell bodies and, less frequently, the non-neuronal satellite cells of the dorsal root, cranial nerve or autonomic ganglia, without causing any symptoms. Years or decades after the initial infection, the virus may break out of nerve cell bodies and travel down nerve axons to cause viral infection of the skin in the region of the nerve. The virus may spread from one or more ganglia along nerves of an affected segment and infect the corresponding dermatome (an area of skin supplied by one spinal nerve) causing a painful rash.[3][4] Although the rash usually heals within two to four weeks, some sufferers experience residual nerve pain for months or years, a condition called postherpetic neuralgia. Exactly how the virus remains latent in the body, and subsequently re-activates, is not understood.

Throughout the world, the incidence rate of Shingles every year ranges from 1.2 to 3.4 cases per 1,000 healthy individuals, increasing to 3.9–11.8 per year per 1,000 individuals among those older than 65 years. Over a lifetime, a large fraction of people develop Shingles, though usually only once; a 1965 16-year British study proposed that, of those individuals living to age 85, 50% would likely have had at least one attack, and 1% had at least two attacks.

The zoster (shingles) vaccine is considered the most effective way to reduce incidence of Shingles and postherpetic neuralgia, and to reduce severity of any outbreak.[9] Antiviral drug treatment is considered a second-line approach, but can reduce the severity and duration of Shingles if a seven- to ten-day course of these drugs is started within 72 hours of the appearance of the characteristic rash.