Shingles - Causes, Symptoms, and Treatments

My uncle is suffering from a deadliest and dangerous diseases which after inspection we got to know a viral infection. That is really painful and heart wrenching. He faced a lot of difficulties because of this diseases. Today I will try to explore that virus and I will expose the name of the virus later in the post. So let us start:

The name of this virus is shingles. It is also known as Herpes Zoster. This viral infection causes a painful rash often appearing as clusters of blisters on the half head normally. These blisters are hard and really painful. They spread quickly on the skin. They can also spread towards the eyes.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

This virus is caused by Varicella-Zoster Virus. The same virus is responsible for the chickenpox. After a person recovers from chickenpox then the virus remains dormant in the in the nerve cells. And these dormant viruses can become reactive again in the body and this time they lead to shingles.

Causes and Risk Factors

Here are the causes and risk factors of the shingles:

• This happens when the immune system is weak.
• When the person reaches above 50 then it can impact as it is seen that it is common in the people which have age above 50.
• It can be caused due to the stress and illness.
• Sometimes it happens because of the steroids taken in the medicines.

Symptoms of Shingles

Here are the further symptoms of shingles to recognize it in the body:

• Pain, burning and tingling before the appearance of the rash.
• The clusters of the blisters or the hard bumps. And these usually appear on one side of the body.
• Fever, headache and fatigue are also the symptoms of shingles.
• Itching and sensitivity in the affected areas are also included in the symptoms of shingles.
• In the severe cases shingles can spread to the eyes and face as well. It happened with my uncle in his case the shingles spread towards his eyes and even one bump was inside his eye on the eyeball.
• Due to the severe complications my uncle was also having vomiting and he was not digesting anything.

Treatment and Management

Here are some treatments and managements for the control of the shingles:

• The first step is to visit the specialist doctor to avoid complications.
• Next for the cure of the viral diseases as it is anti-viral medicines are being used. My uncles was inspected and recommended to use virol capsules.
• On the other hand to prevent pain the patient should be given painkillers such as Ibuprofen or acetaminophen.
• The patient should use cooling affect lotions such as calamine lotion.
• Please feed healthy diet and allow the patient to take rest.

For the prevention there is shingles vaccine (Shingrix) so it can be used and it is highly effective to prevent the diseases for the older adults.

In the conclusion I will say that shingles is a painful condition but it is treatable. Early detection and medical treatment can prevent severe complications in the body. And in the first priority always contact the doctor.