SHINGLES

Shingles

Shingles

Introduction

The name shingles is derived from the typical features of the disease: it forms a skin rash in the form of pinhead-sized bubbles of reddish swollen skin. The rash usually spreads from the spine, like a belt along the infected nerve pathway from around the body.

Frequency

Every year, about 400 of 100,000 people get shingles - usually after the age of 45 of age. The incidence of viral disease is between 60 and 70 Age and in people with weakened immune systems (eg chronic diseases, HIV infection, and cancer) is highest. A herpes zoster can also occur occasionally in children, adolescents and young adults, and in spite of functional immunity.

A shingles (herpes zoster) has its roots in the same virus as chickenpox: the so-called varicella-zoster virus (VZV) or chickenpox, which belongs to the group of herpes viruses. Doctors call the virus that causes chickenpox and shingles as well as human herpes virus type 3 (HHV 3).

Symptoms

At first contact with a shingles (herpes zoster) to more general symptoms that are characteristic little. The typical symptoms of the disease on the other hand only a few days later. The main reason is that it takes a few days until the reactivation of the information given in accordance with a chickenpox infection in the nervous system "latent" virus (the varicella-zoster virus) is clearly noticeable.

Unlike chicken pox, where the whole body is from the rash attack, these symptoms of shingles localized: The rash is only on one side of the body and only in the area that supplies the affected spinal or cranial nerve. Such a cold sore herpes zoster without doctors describe as zoster sine herpetic. In general, shingles is on the chest and abdomen: the rash usually begins on the spine and then spreads out like a belt around the body. Other possible areas are affected by shingles of the jaw (called zoster maxillaries) and genitals (known as genital herpes zoster).

When shingles (herpes zoster) results in the diagnosis of the survey of victims of medical history (anamnesis) and based on the typical symptoms: burning pain and blisters on the skin in certain body regions. Only in isolated cases, it is a herpes zoster required to diagnose the pathogen - the varicella-zoster virus (VZV) - to prove. The pathogen is then as needed if the symptoms do not indicate clearly on shingles. Or even if the patients on a same immune deficiency, a disorder ...