Understanding Shingles

Also Known as Herpes Zoster

One blister appears near your mid-section, then two blisters, before long half of your waist is covered with painful blisters. You have Shingles (herpes zoster) and those blisters will continue to spread around your mid-section and down your legs until you get treatment.. An old wives tales states that if the blisters meet in the middle, the person will die. That is definitely not true, but what exactly is Shingles and how the heck did you get them?

The virus (varicella-zoster) that causes chicken pox in children is responsible for causing Shingles (herpes zoster) in adults. Adults who have had chicken pox, carry the dormant virus, and when the person's immune system gets weak, the virus flares up as Shingles, an infection of a major spinal nerve which semi-circles the body at the mid-section. Blisters resembling chicken pox appear around the waist area, the unique pattern of the blisters gives this disease it's name, herpes zoster. Herpes means virus, zoster is Greek for girdle. The blisters will be accompanied by neurological pain in the same region, which can vary in length of duration and severity. Sometimes Shingles will cause a person to also have flu like symptoms.

Unfortunately, Shingles do not disappear as fast as chicken pox. It will be months before the blisters disappear, but even then, the neurological pain can persist long after the blisters have disappeared. In my husband's case, the blisters lasted for one month, but the numbness around his waist and nerve pain that extended down his leg lasted for almost six months.

Not only adults with weakened immune systems are at risk, but any adult who had chicken pox as a child, and then is exposed to a child who currently has chicken pox, that exposure can result in the dormant virus flaring up. It also works the other way around, a child exposed to an adult with Shingles can contract chicken pox.