Shingles : Shingles Treatment

The aims of shingles treatment are to limit the severity and duration of pain, shorten the duration of a shingles episode, and reduce complications. Symptomatic treatment is often needed for the complication of postherpetic neuralgia. However, a study on untreated shingles  shows that, once the rash has cleared, postherpetic neuralgia is very rare in people under 50 and wears off in time; in older people the pain wore off more slowly, but even in people over 70, 85% were pain free a year after their shingles outbreak.

Shingles Pictures : shingles symptoms and signs

The earliest symptoms of shingles, which include headache, fever, and malaise, are nonspecific, and may result in an incorrect diagnosis. These shingles symptoms are commonly followed by sensations of burning pain, itching, hyperesthesia (oversensitivity), or paresthesia ("pins and needles": tingling, pricking, or numbness). The pain may be mild to extreme in the affected dermatome, with sensations that are often described as stinging, tingling, aching, numbing or throbbing, and can be interspersed with quick stabs of agonizing pain.

shingles in children is often painless, but older people are more likely to get zoster as they age, and the disease tends to be more severe.

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.