My experience with shingles.

[ausguerila]

If you start feeling that your are on the edge doing normal activities and that small inconsistencies in life set you off, you may have been infected with a form of herpes/shingles. This may have been spread to you unintentionally or intentionally through food or being around people who do not cough into something. Shingles can mimic the symptoms of psychosis which could make it very difficult to treat.

[geordief]

If you start feeling that your are on the edge doing normal activities and that small inconsistencies in life set you off, you may have been infected with a form of herpes/shingles. This may have been spread to you unintentionally or intentionally through food or being around people who do not cough into something. Shingles can mimic the symptoms of psychosis which could make it very difficult to treat.

Are you qualified to give (medical) advice on shingles?

[Function]

If you start feeling that your are on the edge doing normal activities and that small inconsistencies in life set you off, you may have been infected with a form of herpes/shingles. This may have been spread to you unintentionally or intentionally through food or being around people who do not cough into something. Shingles can mimic the symptoms of psychosis which could make it very difficult to treat.

 

Define "a form of". I'm infected with EBV (went through acute phase of infectious mononucleosis during final exams last academic year) (as is the majority of the population), a herpes virus, but I'm not convinced of having a psychosis.

 

"Being around people who do not cough into something"? What?

 

Please provide evidence of your statement. Any scientific article will do for me, I'll evaluate it.

[imatfaal]

My Herpes Zoster comes and goes when I am ill with something else - luckily it tends to be around my back and waist; BTW the old german name is gurtelrose - red belt (in fact a little check shows me that shingles, and zoster all mean or come from words for belt). My brother and mother always got it across the face. Frankly, next time I get it, I will be glad to put some of my grouchiness on pathological psychosis rather than the fact that it hurts like hell.

 

My memory of its vectors is pretty poor - but Function can correct me if I am wrong - Herpes Zoster when it presents as Shingles is always (?) a reactiviation of the varicella zoster virus from within your own body. So to contradict the OP - you do not catch Shingles. The VZV initial presents as Chickenpox and stays (in nerve cells of some sort) quiescent till the immune system is down at a low point at which time (many many years later) you can come out with Shingles.

[Function]

My memory of its vectors is pretty poor - but Function can correct me if I am wrong - Herpes Zoster when it presents as Shingles is always (?) a reactiviation of the varicella zoster virus from within your own body. So to contradict the OP - you do not catch Shingles. The VZV initial presents as Chickenpox and stays (in nerve cells of some sort) quiescent till the immune system is down at a low point at which time (many many years later) you can come out with Shingles.

 

As far as I'm aware of, that's correct.

 

The "belt" is also present in Dutch "gordelroos" (which means the same as Gurtelrose), and imo refers to the dermatome "belts". In the image below (nibbed off of Wikimedia) we see an attack of the sensory nerves in the right-sided dermatome T2, or even T3, if I'm not mistaken.

 

 

Fun fact: the blisters in case of a Herpes simplex exacerbation are caused not by the virus itself, but by cellular destruction by cytotoxic (CD8-positive) T-lymphocytes. Probably also the case in Varicella zoster (zona).

Edited January 15, 2017 by Function

[geordief]

If someone has not had previously chicken pox I am led to believe that someone with shingles can infect them with chicken pox.

 

https://www.cdc.gov/shingles/about/transmission.html

 

Chicken pox can also be serious

 

https://www.cdc.gov/features/preventchickenpox/

[dimreepr]

Chicken pox can also be serious

 

https://www.cdc.gov/features/preventchickenpox/

 

 

Tell me about it, I caught chicken pox about 15 years ago from a friends 6 year old; he had one or two spots and got over it in about a week; I had one or two spots on my body (including the inside of my mouth) that didn't have blisters and it lasted for nearly a month, luckily I've never had shingles.

[Endy0816]

Shingles is definitely a bad one :/

 

Pain causing inability sleep on top of preexisting stress. Gained some perspective on suffering and why people react so illogically in response, but that was the only positive of the whole experience. Still had occasional pain in the area where it occurred for years.

[imatfaal]

 

As far as I'm aware of, that's correct.

 

The "belt" is also present in Dutch "gordelroos" (which means the same as Gurtelrose), and imo refers to the dermatome "belts". In the image below (nibbed off of Wikimedia) we see an attack of the sensory nerves in the right-sided dermatome T2, or even T3, if I'm not mistaken.

...

Fun fact: the blisters in case of a Herpes simplex exacerbation are caused not by the virus itself, but by cellular destruction by cytotoxic (CD8-positive) T-lymphocytes. Probably also the case in Varicella zoster (zona).

 

T2 I think. You are right that the belts follow the dermatomes; the names date back into medieval times - perhaps even classical - and the disease was named because the course of the blisters looked like a belt or girdle. There was an old wives tale that if the blisters came all the way around and met to form an uninterrupted belt around the torso that you would die! Frankly without modern painkillers and aciclovir and a bilateral and long lasting illness - perhaps death was possible