How are shingles and chicken pox related to each other?

Chicken pox is a well known children's disease in the Western world, shingles is something for the elderly. They are both disease that cause vesicles, but apart from that there are very different symptoms and signs. Still, there is a connection between the two diseases.

Chicken pox

Almost everyone knows what a child with chicken pox looks like: small vesicles appear all over the body, often starting in the neck area. Mostly, the child is feeling unwell before the vesicles appear. Once the vesicles are present, the child is often feeling better, but the vesicles are known to itch terribly. There are several lotions available to ease the itching, but taking a bath with oat flakes seems to do the trick as well. It is important to prevent the lesions from being scratched, because that could lead to an infection and subsequent scarring.

The virus disappears

Once the outbreak is over (most of the vesicles are dried out after a week or so), the virus that caused the chicken pox does not disappear from the body. This virus, known as varicella zoster virus, retreats to the nerve ganglions near the spinal cord, and will stay there for the rest of its carrier's life. Only when a period of impaired immunity occurs, the virus can multiply again. The disease it causes then is called shingles.

Shingles

Vesicles appear in a limited zone on the body. They can spread, but will always be limited to one side of the body. This is because the nerve ganglions (from which the virus spreads) are on the left or on the right side of the body, and never on both sides.

Pain before vesicles appear

A noticeable fact in shingles is the pre- and afterpain that is experienced. Especially the place where the vesicles will appear in a few days, is hyperensitive, but there can also be pain in other places nearby. Sometimes there is even a generalized pain, where the entire body is painful when it is touched.

Hundreds of vesicles

In chicken pox the vesicles are separate, but in shingles they occur in groups, sometimes dozens at the same time. The fluid that exudes from the vesicles, contains the varicella zoster virus and is therefore contagious. Someone who is infected by a shingles patient and did not have chicken pox, will develop chicken pox. This means that shingles in itself is not a contagious disease. If someone has had chicken pox, he will not develop symptoms after contact with the virus.

Sometimes the pain remains

Especially older people can still have pain long after shingles has disappeared. Except for analgesics, there are no drugs to counteract this. Early treatment with antiviral drugs is strongly advised: if treatment is started within three days, the likelihood of residual symptoms is much smaller.

Sources: www.todio.nl