Do You Know That YOU Can Get Shingles If You Have Had Chickenpox?

Back in February of 2010 I woke up with a stabbing pain in the left side of my back.  Because I had been exercising for the past few days, you know the one, "we must, we must, we must improve our bust" I thought I had pulled a muscle.  The pain got more severe as each day passed.  The heating pad did not help, in fact, I think it made it worse.  Finally after six days of excruciating pain I called and made an appointment with the doctor.  While I was getting ready to go to my appointment I noticed two little spots in the same place where the pain in my back was.  Now the night before, even though it was February I had seen a mosquito in the house and figured that I had gotten bit.  But when I got to the office the "mosquito bite"  was one of the symptoms of Shingles.  I had SHINGLES.  How could that be possible?  I was given a prescription and sent home with my pain and agony. My condition got much worse before it got better.  There were several mornings, and mornings were my worst times, that I actually thought I was dying.  The bad part of the whole ordeal was that I did not seek medical attention when the symptoms first began because I confused them with something else.  Because of this I did not start the medicine soon enough and I wound up with nerve damage.  So if you have ever had Chickenpox when you were younger you are at risk for Shingles when you are older.  Below is a list of information about shingles and the symptoms.

Shingles is a skin rash caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox. This virus is called the Varicella zoster virus (VZV) and is in the herpes family of viruses. After an individual has chickenpox, this virus lives dormant in the nervous system and is never fully cleared from the body.Before a rash is visible, the patient may notice several days to a week of burning pain and sensitive skin. When the characteristic rash is not yet apparent, it may be difficult to determine the cause of the often severe pain. Shingles rash starts as small blisters on a red base, with new blisters continuing to form for three to five days. The blisters follow the path of individual nerves that come out of the spinal cord in a specific "ray-like" distribution (called a dermatomal pattern) and appear in a band-like pattern on an area of skin. The entire path of the affected nerve may be involved, or there may be areas in the distribution of the nerve with blisters and areas without blisters. Generally, only one nerve level is involved. In a rare case, more than one nerve will be involved. Eventually, the blisters pop, and the area starts to ooze. The affected areas will then crust over and heal. The duration of the outbreak may take three to four weeks from start to finish. On occasion, the pain will be present but the blisters may never appear. This can be a very confusing cause of cause of local pain.

Anyone who has ever had chickenpox is at risk for the development of shingles, although it occurs most commonly in people over the age of 60. It has been estimated that up to 1,000,000 cases of shingles occur each year in the U.S.


Is shingles contagious?                                                         
Yes, shingles is contagious. Shingles can be spread from an affected person to children or adults who have not had chickenpox. But instead of developing shingles, these people develop chickenpox. Once they have had chickenpox, people cannot catch shingles (or contract the virus) from someone else. Once infected, however, people have the potential to develop shingles later in life.

The information was acquired from http://www.medicinenet.com/shingles/article.
 
By the way my "mosquitoe bites" never made blisters and I only had six red spots.  It was not the rash that was so bad for me but the pain, the tingling and the nerve spasms.  Just a note to let you know that it will get better even with nerve damage.  It just takes time and a lot of pain to get through.  I hope this has been helpful to those who have had chickenpox in the past and may have shingles in the future.  It will get better.