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How long does shingles last and is it contagious?
how long it lasts varies from case to case and it is affected by whether or not the person was treated with any antiviral medications.
Shingles is only "contagious" to someone who has never had/been vaccinated against chickenpox. So, if a 2 yr old touches grandma’s shingles, the 2 yr old can quite possibly get chickenpox, not shingles. the same virus causes both conditions.it goes like this; let’s pretend that we have a 5-year-old child who contracts chickenpox. The virus replicates through his entire body, and then his immune system figures out how to fight this particular virus. Unfortunately the virus is not completely eradicated from his body. The virus is able to hide in ganglia located at each vertebral level from your tailbone all the way up to the top of your neck, and some ganglia in your head as well. While the virus is inside these ganglia it is protected from the immune system, but they aren’t causing symptoms, they are held dormant. Unfortunately later in life if there is something that causes the immune system to waver slightly, such as a cold, sleep deprivation, stress, or even taking a long vacation and crossing four or five time zones, then what occurs is that the dormant virus living in the ganglia creeps down the nerve(the virus which causes shingles is in the family of viruses called herpes viruses. A herpetologist is someone who studies snakes, the Greek word herp means to crawl) and causes symptoms of blistering and pain in the skin which is served by that one particular nerve. these blisters contain the virus which causes shingles and chickenpox.
I don’t know that much about it but I can share my experience with it. My grandmother had it and even after the lesions went away she still had pain in those places for years. After you recover from chicken pox as a child, the virus that caused it lies dormant and then comes out when your immune system gets low or you are stressed. I actually never had chiken pox as a child so after visiting my grandmother when she had shingles, I got chicken pox! It was my first week of high school too. Really bad timing. So there you go, that’s my experience with shingles!
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My understanding it is the adult form of chicken pocks! BUT it is much harder to kick than chicken pocks and you can get it more than once! I think they have a vaccine for it now????? Check into it!
I don’t think it is contagious unless your immune systems are low!
Web MD is a great site for that kind of info!
References :
how long it lasts varies from case to case and it is affected by whether or not the person was treated with any antiviral medications.
Shingles is only "contagious" to someone who has never had/been vaccinated against chickenpox. So, if a 2 yr old touches grandma’s shingles, the 2 yr old can quite possibly get chickenpox, not shingles. the same virus causes both conditions.it goes like this; let’s pretend that we have a 5-year-old child who contracts chickenpox. The virus replicates through his entire body, and then his immune system figures out how to fight this particular virus. Unfortunately the virus is not completely eradicated from his body. The virus is able to hide in ganglia located at each vertebral level from your tailbone all the way up to the top of your neck, and some ganglia in your head as well. While the virus is inside these ganglia it is protected from the immune system, but they aren’t causing symptoms, they are held dormant. Unfortunately later in life if there is something that causes the immune system to waver slightly, such as a cold, sleep deprivation, stress, or even taking a long vacation and crossing four or five time zones, then what occurs is that the dormant virus living in the ganglia creeps down the nerve(the virus which causes shingles is in the family of viruses called herpes viruses. A herpetologist is someone who studies snakes, the Greek word herp means to crawl) and causes symptoms of blistering and pain in the skin which is served by that one particular nerve. these blisters contain the virus which causes shingles and chickenpox.
References :