From the words meaning, it seems that herpes zoster and herpes are similar disease. Both diseases are with many similar symptoms. For example, they both have blisters and pain, they need about 2 weeks to go away and can reoccur. Thus, is herpes zoster is one kind of herpes? The answer is no, they are caused by different virus. Herpes zoster is also known as shingles which is caused by varicella zoster virus, while herpes is caused by both herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and type 2 (HSV-2).
If you have got both herpes and herpes zoster before, you can feel that they are total different. herpes is common on the mouth and genital organs, while herpes zoster is usually on the trunk.

Tom is 20 years old. He found there are bumps on the skin recently. According to the friend who is a doctor, Tom think that he has got shingles. However, he did not want to take any treatment, but he is not sure whether there will be anything bad happen.
As far as we known, shingles is caused by the same virus as chicken pox and the virus can not be cured. If we left it untreated, the blister will eventually scar over and then go away on it’s own after a few weeks.

There is no doubt that shingles are painful and itching. It is believed that many people can not bear it and will got into the clinic for treatment. However, actually, we only treat the symptoms, not the shingles themselves. If your shingles is mild, which do not bring any trouble in your daily activities, you can consider leaving i untreated and let them go away.
For some special case, such as shingles in the eye / head, medical treatment is definitely recommended, as it can lead to blindness, deafness, brain damage, and paralysis. If your baby is too young (for example, he is only 3 moths), or you are too old (e.g. over 60), it is also suggested to go to see the doctor to get some proper suggestions.

Yes, you can consider having shingles vaccine after having shingles outbreak. As we known, shingles can be recurred after several months or several years once the virus is active again in you body. Shingles vaccine can help you to prevent the recurrence of shingles, so there is no matter that whether you have got first outbreak or you have several shingles symptoms or not.

However, not all people are recommended to have shingles vaccine. Usually, it is suggested for the older people who is over 60 years old. For one thing, old people has high risk to get shingles recurrences. For another thing, it is told that the safety and effects of the vaccine were only studied in this group people. Thus, if you are every young, for example, you are only 30 years old, the doctor will not suggest you to have shingles vaccine.

Moreover, it does not mean that you will not get shingles after you received shingles vaccine. Shingles virus can not be cured and the virus will be in your body for ever, although you have get the vaccine. However, shingles vaccine can help you reduce the severity and duration of shingles.

I have got shingles after Christmas festival. Actually, festival and holiday are periods that people would be easy to get shingles. Usually, people is tire and did not live a healthy life during those few days, so that it will lead to low immunity and the virus can have the chance to be re-active.

On the first day, it is just a little hurt on my neck and head. I did not notice it is shingles, as I did not get shingles before. I thought it should be some acne. However, the pain become heavy on the second day and there are some red bumps on it. I start to realize that it should not be acne, as acne can only lead to a little pain. As I have no experience on it, I thought it may be just a pimple and ignore it.
On the third day, I found my back is very hurt and there are some pimples on it. However, I did not treat it seriously and just put some cream on the skin.
On the fourth day, when I woke up, I feel uncomfortable and seems get fever. What was worse, when I look into the mirror, I see there are many pimples on the face, like variola.  Meanwhile, it is burning hurt. My god, i can not help to cry. Thus, I decided to go to see the doctor. After a body check, the doctor told me that I am a little fever, and I have got shingles! As the shingles is at the early stage, the doctor give me some medicines to speed up the outbreak of the virus.
On the fifth day, after taking the medicines, more pimples come out and some pimples become blisters. The pain is heavy and it is burning hurt.
On the sixth day, there are more blisters and some red blisters too. I go to see the doctor again. At this time, the doctor give me some medicines to try to make the outbreak recover quickly.
On the seventh day, the burning hurt is better than before. My mother advised me that I should take care myself to protect the blisters not to break. Some pimples on my skin, including on the face, are gone, without leaving anything.
On the eighth and ninth day, the blisters start to scab. And there is no burning hurt at all.
After ten days and several months later, everything goes normal. However, there are some scars on my skin and seems never gone.

In my opinion, shingles on hands is fine, better than on other part of the body. It is too ugly if it is on the face, and it is dangerous if on eyes and ears. If on head and back, it is hard to take care of it as you can not see them, and you should be annoyed when you shampoo the hair or take a bath, and it will be hurt if you laid on your back. If shingles on the legs and foot, it is not so convenient too when you walk and wear trousers.  All in all, I think shingles on hands is luckier.
However, there is one thing that can not be ignored, which is pain after shingles. Postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) is a neuralgia which caused by a virus named VZV. For some people, after recover of shingles outbreak, the burning pain is still on the hands. Sometimes the hands is swollen and is weak. It will not only affect your daily activities, but also interfere with sleep and appetite.

Shingles rash appears as a patch or band of blisters on one side of your face or the body, which will develop sensation, numbness, and pain to the affected area. Shingles can be anywhere, the most common presentation of shingles is on the trunk or thorax.

For some serious case, the pain of shingles on legs very heavy and make patient difficult to walk.

Shingles blisters generally occur on one side of the body, common in the rib areas and around waist. A small percentage of patients, especially the elder people, are easier to get shingles on the head, which attack the trigeminal nerve & facial nerve and cause facial paralysis, earache, severe headache, keratitis, optic atrophy and other symptoms.

The shingles on the head have the following characteristics.

① Facial herpes zoster or shingles on scalp are more common occurred in the older people. Before the outbreak, patients, usually have the symptom which is similar to flu, some may be fever and vomiting.

② Shingles on scalp  mostly occurs in spring and autumn, some patients just recover from extremely tired period;

③ Most patients have no headache history before.

④ In the early stage of shingles outbreak, in order to reduce pain and other complications, anti-viral, nerve nutrition and pain drugs are recommended.

It is trouble that if you have shingles on the head, as you can not see it and it is hard for your to clean the skin, as there is hair on the head, especially for women. Here is the case of shingles on the head just for your reference.

Date	Symptom	Pain	Picture
1st day	At the beginning of shingles on scalp,  people nearly did not notice it. There are only some bumps on the scalp and almost on pain.	light
2nd day	Obviously, there are bumps occurred.	heavy
6th day	May blisters can be seen.	excruciating
8th day	scabby bumps	excruciating
12th day	scabby bumps	heavy
14th day	plucked bumps	heavy
18th day	a chunk of shingles on the head	Medium
36th day	shingles patch and depressions on the head	almost no pain

As a pregnant women, it is believed that you try to best to protect yourself to avoid any virus’ attack. VZV (Varicella zoster virus) is a virus that can cause chicken pox and shingles.

Generally speaking, most pregnant women should have chickenpox in childhood, so they are immune to VZV. In this situation, you are safe from people with shingles or chicken pox. If pregnant women is not VZV non-immune, it is better for her to stay away from crowd, such as festival shopping and crowded bus, as there may be some VZV floating around from the unknown people. You can check with your doctor whether you are immune to VZV or not, and the doctor should give proper suggestion about it.

It is rare that pregnant women have chicken pox. Very rarely, complications resulting from chickenpox during pregnancy can be fatal to pregnant women. Although rare, chickenpox during pregnancy can cause complications both for the unborn baby and the pregnant woman. The risk of complications depend on how many weeks of pregnant. Research shows there is a small risk that chickenpox during pregnancy can cause complications for your unborn baby. Before the first 13 weeks of pregnancy, chickenpox does not appear to increase the risk of miscarriage. If an unborn baby get chickenpox in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy, it is reported that less than 1% of unborn babies were affected by FVS (foetal varicella syndrome) when their mothers had chickenpox while pregnant. If you get chickenpox after week 37 pregnancy, it is unluck to tell that your baby is at risk of being born with chickenpox. If you get chickenpox seven days before or after giving birth, your baby may have chance to develop a severe type of chickenpox.

If you get shingles when you are pregnant, it is no need to be awful and was frightening. It is s usually mild, and it cannot be passed onto your baby due to your antibodies from having chicken pox. However, you should avoid contact with others or pregnant women in case they’re not immune to VZV.  You should also keep your rash covered until your last blister has scabbed over, as the open blisters can be contagious. Actually, the risk is very low, the virus is not so easy to pass to other if your blisters are covered, for example, by clothing or a dressing.

Shingles is caused by Varicella zoster virus (VZV), which belongs to herpesviridae. The herpesviridae, also know as herpes viruses, are a large family of DNA viruses that cause diseases in animals, including humans.
For the virus in humans, they can be divided into eight distinct. Below are herpes viruses that existed in human being.

Type	Synonym	Pathophysiology	Means of Spread
HHV-1	Herpes simplex virus-1 (HSV-1)	Oral and/or genital herpes (predominantly orofacial), as well as other herpes simplex infections	Close contact
HHV-2	Herpes simplex virus-2 (HSV-2)	Oral and/or genital herpes (predominantly genital), as well as other herpes simplex infections	Close contact (sexually transmitted disease)
HHV-3	Varicella zoster virus (VZV)	Chickenpox and shingles	Respiratory and close contact
HHV-4	Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), lymphocryptovirus	Infectious mononucleosis, Burkitt’s lymphoma, CNS lymphoma in AIDS patients,	Close contact, transfusions, tissue transplant, and congenital
		post-transplant lymphoproliferative syndrome (PTLD), nasopharyngeal carcinoma, HIV-associated hairy leukoplakia
HHV-5	Cytomegalovirus (CMV)	Infectious mononucleosis-like syndrome,[9] retinitis, etc.	Saliva
HHV-6	Roseolovirus, Herpes lymphotropic virus	Sixth disease (roseola infantum or exanthem subitum)	Respiratory and close contact?
HHV-7	Roseolovirus	Sixth disease (roseola infantum or exanthem subitum)
HHV-8	Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus	Kaposi’s sarcoma, primary effusion lymphoma, some types of multicentric Castleman’s disease	Close contact (sexual), saliva?
	(KSHV), a type of rhadinovirus

From above table, it is obviously to find that shingles virus is the type of HHV-3, named Varicella zoster virus (VZV). This virus cause chicken pox when people are first infected, usually in childhood. Chickenpox is very contagious during the period form fluid-filled blister to a dry crust. After chicken pox, the virus is in the body and it becomes shingles when the virus is re-active again.

Which season?

Shingles can recur in any season, but it usually occurs in spring. It can be in any part of your body.

Shingles recurred after long holiday

Usually after one week of long vocation or festival, it is found there are more people at pain clinics. As, many people become very tire after long vocation, or they have very bad diet or living habit during festival, both of which would lead to low immunity and reduce body resistance, so that the dormant virus of shingles can have a chance to be reactive.

Shingles recurred due to sitting up late or sleeplessness

Sleeplessness can have cause negative physical effects. As we know, cells would be recovered quicker during sleeping at night and the body needs sleep to support a healthy immune system. Prolonged sleeplessness would make people feeling drowsy or fatigued during the day and may be more susceptible to both acute and chronic illnesses.
Being unable to sleep well not only lead to negative physical effects, but also can cause bad emotional effects, especially when it become acute. People can not sleep well for a long time would be easier to be anxiety, depression and possibly substance abuse. In such case, shingles virus may recur for some people.

Shingles recurred after physical or emotional stress

Shingles can be recurred, when people is under repeated tensile stresses due to overloads and the splitting tensile strength. Below is a particular case for shingles recurrence.

Mr. Johson is a project manager. He usually has to having dinner, drinking with customers, travel everywhere. During world cup, Mr. Johson forgot sleep and did not miss any game. After a few days, he got a pain on the right lower foot, Two days later, along with pain, the skin appeared red spot, blister. The doctor diagnosed at shingles.