shingles contagious stage

At the beginning of the shingles outbreak, the symptoms, such as Physical fatigue, persistent headache, sudden chills, is this shingles contagious? The answer is yes.

In the middle of shingles outbreak, the rash develops into blisters, during the new blisters forming and old blisters healing, the virus is contagious. When a healthy person is in contact with the broken blisters, it is change to be infected. The virus will slip into the body by mucosal surfaces (such as: mouth, eyes, nose and genitals) or damaged skin. Above is the second period of shingles contagious.

After about an incubation period of about 10 to 21 days, following shingles contagious stage is primary infection, which is called Chickenpox. Reactivation of this virus results in the clinically distinct syndrome of herpes zoster (shingles), and sometimes Ramsay Hunt syndrome type II.

View some pictures about Shingles Outbreak Stage.

Shingles is contagious to what kind of people?

Shingles / Herpes zoster is caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox. The virus can be contagious to any people of those who have had chickenpox, such as adults, children / kids, infants / babies, pregnant women. Once the person was infected, it does not mean she/he will have shingles symptom, in fact, it will develop chickenpox and you experience the normally shingles contagious stage.

How Contagious Is Shingles? Once you are unlucky to have shingles symptom, which is a strip of rash / blister, you may be eager to know how contagious are shingles?

Shingles/ herpes zoster virus

Shingles/ herpes zoster is caused by varicella zoster virus (VZV), which is a double-stranded DNA virus related to the Herpes simplex virus group. If you have got chickenpox before, then you have such varicella zoster virus, this virus remains dormant in the body and may re-emerge years later. When your immune system is lower, the virus will re-occur and with a symptom of shingles / herpes zoster. However, recurrence of shingles / herpes zoster is rare, and it is extremely rare for patients to suffer more than three repeated attacks.

Shingles/ herpes zoster Contagious

Shingles virus has a high level of infectivity and is prevalent worldwide, and has a very stable prevalence from generation to generation. But one can’t easily get shingles from someone who has the shingles, unless the person is in contact with the rash/sores and fluid that is draining from them. Once the shingles of the outbreak was over, it is little possible to be caught by shingles virus.

Once you have get shingles outbreak, it is very important to keep the affected area clean, as it will prevent the rash to spread to other parts of your body. Although it is little possibility that shingles spread to organs and cause serious damage if no treatment action was taken. However, in case the shingles virus spreads to the eyes, it is suggested to go to see the doctor to prevent further complications, as in some seriously case, the eye may result in such things as loss of vision, glaucoma, or cataracts.

In addition, shingles virus is not transmitted through airborne, such as sneezing or coughing. Once the rash has developed to be crusts, the person is no longer contagious to others. A person will be not infectious before blisters appear or after the rash is gone, although the guy suffered from post-herpetic neuralgia.

There is no cure for shingles, but treatment may shorten the length of illness and prevent complications. Treatment options include:

* Antiviral medicines, sometimes in combination with corticosteroids, to reduce the pain and duration of shingles.
* Pain medicines, antidepressants, and topical creams to relieve long-term pain.

Initial treatment

Once you are diagnosed with shingles, your doctor probably start treatment with antiviral medicines. If you begin medicines within the first 2 days of seeing the shingles rash, you have a lower chance of having later problems, such as post herpetic neuralgia. Early treatment of shingles is important, because the problems that can arise can be serious and resistant to treatment. For example, 40% to 50% of people with post herpetic neuralgia do not respond to treatment.6

The most common treatments for shingles include:

* Antiviral medicines, such as acyclovir, famciclovir, or valacyclovir, to reduce the pain and the duration of shingles.
* Over-the-counter pain medicines, such as acetaminophen, aspirin, or ibuprofen, to help reduce pain during an attack of shingles.
* Corticosteroids, in combination with antiviral medicine, to reduce pain and the duration of shingles.
* Topical antibiotics, applied directly to the skin, to stop infection of the blisters.

Ongoing treatment

If you have pain that persists longer than a month after your shingles rash heals, your health professional may diagnose postherpetic neuralgia, the most common complication of shingles. Postherpetic neuralgia can cause pain for months or years. It affects 10% to 15% of those who experience shingles.6 Treatment to reduce the pain of postherpetic neuralgia includes:6

* Antidepressant medicines, such as a tricyclic antidepressant (for example, amitriptyline).
* Topical anesthetics, such as lidocaine patches, to numb the area.
* Anticonvulsant medicines, such as gabapentin or pregabalin.
* Opioids, such as codeine.
Topical creams containing capsaicin may provide some relief from pain. Capsaicin may irritate or burn the skin of some people, and it should be used with caution.

Treatment if the condition gets worse

In some cases, shingles causes long-term complications. Treatment depends upon the specific complication.

* Postherpetic neuralgia is persistent pain that lasts months or even years after the shingles rash heals. Certain medicines, such as anticonvulsants, antidepressants, and opioids, can relieve pain. Most cases of postherpetic neuralgia resolve within a year. In very rare cases, surgical treatment may be used to treat postherpetic neuralgia by cutting nerves to help block pain signals.

* Disseminated zoster is a blistery rash over a large portion of your body. It may affect your heart, lungs, liver, pancreas, joints, and intestinal tract. Treatment may include both antiviral medicines to prevent the virus from multiplying and antibiotics to stop infection.
* Herpes zoster ophthalmicus is a rash on the forehead, cheek, nose, and around one eye, which could threaten your sight. You should seek prompt treatment from an ophthalmologist for this condition.3 Treatment may include rest, cool compresses, and antiviral medicines.
* If the shingles virus affects the nerves originating in the brain (cranial nerves), serious complications involving the face, eyes, nose, and brain can develop. Treatment depends on the nature and location of the complication.

Eyes Shingles

Shingles eye, also called herpes zoster ophthalmicus, different from shingles on other part of body, is a more serious skin disease.

Shingles in The Eye

Shingles in the eye and on forehead: Occurred in the trigeminal nerve (eye branch), which is around forehead and upper eyelid skin;

Shingles  of the eye and on mouth: Sometimes is next to the under eyelids, cheek and upper lip.

Symptoms

During early outbreak of  shingles in the eye, there is serious trigeminal neuralgia, easy to tear and so on. It is also painful and itching.

A few days later, the skin become red, swollen, strips of rash appears and then blisters. The blister is transparent at the beginning and then become the turbidity suppuration. After a few weeks, it will scab off. For some people, the pain will still exist, which is called pain after shingles . For some people, nothing left, n pain and no scars.

Eye Shingles Treatment

The people with shingles in the eye is  suggested to go to see the doctor immediately once you have got it. As in severe case, it can lead to blindness. It is not a joking. Treatment in below is just for your reference.

1. Bed rest; eat the food that digests easily.

2. 1% gentian violet or sprinkle talcum powder.

3. When your shingles eye is severe pain, sedatives and analgesics can be considered.

Shingles in the eye is not only a common shingles outbreak. I mean, you can not treat it as a common skin disease. If the shingles are on the your trunk, such as arm, you can consider not having any treatment and let them go away by themselves. Yes, you need to go to an ophthalmologist once you suspect shingles in your eye. An eye doctor is suggested. It is every serious. You have to forget all your appointment first and taking proper eye treatment is priority. For some people, they have to keep using eye drops for many months or years after the shingles. I have a friend who has shingles in the eye, but did not have treatment in time, she has is almost blindness now.

Eye Shingles Pictures

More information about shingles in the eye

(Herpes Zoster)Shingles of the Eye

Eye shingles

shingles symptoms

Shingles Pain Relief

What drugs can I take to relieve the pain of shingles?

There are many types of painkillers which used to make shingles pain more tolerable:
1. Narcotics, also known as opioids, such as codeine.
2. Corticosteroids, sometimes called simply steroids, which is antiviral medicine, sometimes to reduce the pain and duration of shingles.
3. Aspirin, ibuprofen, and other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs for short).
4. Acetominophen, of which the best known form is Tylenol.

Doing some exercises can reduce psychological stress, as psychological stress can trigger pain. So the reduction of stress can actually reduce the perception of pain. In addition, it can powerfully reinforce the effects of drugs and other medical agents in relieving shingles pain.

If the pain of shingles kept you from sleeping, wrapping the area with an elastic sports bandage is also a good way of natural process of pain relief. The mildly irritating sensations, which made by the pressure of the elastic bandage, are transmitted to the central nervous system, where they trigger reactions that diminish the perception of pain. Another form of counter irritation that sometimes helps; with shingles is a liniment such as oil of wintergreen, which initially makes the skin tingle.

Shingles Face

Shingles is caused by the virus that causes chicken pox. After the first symptoms of chicken pox, the chicken pox virus (Herpes zoster) goes to the person’s spinal nerves, and then, in SOME unlucky people, they come out again as shingles.
Some peoples who have had shingles on the face describe: itching burning, on lower face thought it was spider bite, then erupted. It came on fast and worse this second time….It’s been 9 days since the itch and I am exhausted, body aches, weak and the nausea is horrible.

It is true that shingles is one of the most painful conditions you have to endure, which involves your nerve endings, and starts in the spinal area/torso. Once it reaches your face, it’s extremely serious. It is suggested that you have it go to the doctor as soon as possible.

Shingles Pictures

At the first symptoms of shingles (herpes zoster), the rash begins with reddish bumps. Mostly, the rash occurs on the trunk of the body.

After a few days, these bumps turn into a strip of fluid-filled blisters. Some people might feel a stinging or burning pain.

And then, after 7-10days, the blisters usually crust over and fall off. You may notice the color changes of your skin when the scabs fall off. In more severe cases of shingles, these color changes last forever.

People who have the following shingles should see the doctor right away.
herpes zoster ophthalmicus
If shingles around your eyes would cause swollen eyelids, redness and pain, as it can cause scars that damage your vision. It can also lead to glaucoma later in life. Kindly pay attention that glaucoma is an eye disease that can cause blindness.

ear-zoster. In serious case, it can lead to deaf.

gastrointestinal tract and urinary tract

U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of Merck & Co. vaccine Zostavax in 2006, with the purpose to prevent this painful disease in as many as 50 percent of adults, about half of people 60 years of age and older.

After people suffer chicken pox in childhood, the virus hidden in the body and in the dormant state, until the body’s immune function decline (usually in old age),it will come out as herpes zoster (shingles).
In the United States, each year there are about one million new cases of shingles. Despite the decline in immune function in any of the people is vulnerable to the disease, but the disease is still easier to occur in the elderly.

Zostavax vaccine can not prevent the initial infection of varicella-zoster virus and can not cure the outbreak of herpes zoster (shingles). But it can enhance the patient’s immune system to help prevent the dormant virus in the body to become re-active.

In order to test the vaccine, Researchers vaccinated 38,546 persons, who aged 60 or over and have had chickenpox before. After three-year follow-up survey on those people, the results showed that the vaccine can reduce the shingles outbreak by about 50%, and so that the pain and discomfort by a decrease of almost 2 / 3.

Like any medicine, the vaccine could possibly have some side effects, such as severe allergic reactions.Generally speaking, the vaccine’s side effects are minor, such as headache, injection location redness or swelling
Mild Problems:
Redness, soreness, swelling, or itching at the site of the injection (about 1 person in 3).
Headache (about 1 person in 70).

First Shingles Vaccine

Signs and symptoms of shingles happen in stages. The early shingles symptoms, which include headache, fever, and malaise, are nonspecific. For some people, they may also feel like you have the flu but not have a fever. Later, you may feel itching, tingling, pricking or burning pain in a certain area.

Usually, a band, strip, or small area of rash may occur after 1–2 days (but sometimes as long as 3 weeks), which occurs on the torso, but can appear on the face, eyes or other parts of the body.
The rash looks like hives; however, unlike hives, herpes zoster normally results in a stripe or belt-like pattern that is limited to one side of the body and it does not cross the midline.

Development of the shingles rash

Day 1	Day 2	Day 5	Day 6

Later, the rash on the skin turns into clusters of blisters or vesicular, filled with a serous exudates, as the fever and general malaise continue. At this time, as they fill with blood, the painful vesicles eventually become cloudy or darkened.

Finally, the blisters which fill with fluid will crust over. It takes 2 to 4 weeks for the blisters to heal, and then leave scars.

Once you have caught shingles unluckily, the doctor would suggest some treatment with the purpose of pain relief, anti- inflammation. Actually, there is no cure for shingles.
* Cold compresses: use towels or washcloths wrung out in cold water to the lesions. If you want them colder, you can consider storing them in the freezer.
* Lysine supplements, 500 to 1,000 mg. three times daily during an outbreak according to the doctor instruction. Available in common health food stores.
* Zostrix ointment. After the lesions have healed, apply four to six a day for several weeks.
* Vitamin E, which can be squeezed directly onto lesions.
* Arginine-rich foods such as chocolate, peanuts and nuts, seeds, cereal grains,

Some people may not seek any metond to cure for shingles, but we should pay attention to the body part if there are shingles occur.
(A) Shingles of the eye, which located around trigeminal nerve, can cause inflammation of the front of the eye. In severe cases, it can cause blindness.
(B) ear-zoster virus will spread to the facial nerve and cause intense ear pain. If it became worse, there are symptoms of tinnitus, hearing loss.
(C) Shingles around gastrointestinal tract and urinary tract.

Remember, there is no cure for shingles, but treatment may help you get well sooner and prevent other problems.

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