Immunizations can prevent, mitigate symptoms of shingles

A couple of hours after she went hiking in the Doña Ana Mountains in December of 2012, Emily Chaddock began to feel an itch around her spine.

"I thought, 'Oh, I just got bit by a bug,'" Chaddock said. "(It was) nothing big, but then it started to spread."

Chaddock said the rash began to wrap around the front of her body, and the itching only worsened.

"I was Googling rashes, which is terrifying in itself, and I had a friend take a picture of it so I could see what it looked like," Chaddock said.

By comparing photographs on the Internet to her rash, Chaddock said she was able to diagnose herself with shingles, which a doctor confirmed when she visited the Rio Grande Medical Group a few days later.

According to Dr. Stephanie Benson, a family physician at Memorial Medical Center, shingles - or herpes zoster - is caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox.
"What happens is when people have chicken pox, the virus after the chicken pox goes away kind of lives and stays dormant in what we call ganglion, which are portions along nerve cells, or little intersections of nerve cells," Benson said.

She said for reasons possibly related to illness, stress or waning immunity in an individual, the virus can reawaken and move along the nerve, causing a painful or itchy rash full of bumps and blisters to break out at the skin where the sensory nerve gives feeling. These symptoms generally last for about a week and can be contagious.

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"If someone has shingles and their lesions are still open at the time, someone that has never had chicken pox can get chicken pox from the shingles themselves," Benson said.
Once the lesions have scabbed over, the disease is no longer infectious.

Treatment for shingles involves prescribing patients medications that will control the infection and the nerve pain. Benson said people who take these medications within the first 72 hours after they break out in the rash can decrease how long and how bad they have the disease and their potential of getting post herpetic neuralgia, a complication of shingles.

"What (postherpetic neuralgia) means is that after the infection is gone, you can have pain in the area even though there's no rash there anymore," she said. "That same burning, terrible, sore pain."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost 1 in 3 people in the U.S. will develop shingles sometime during their lifetime.

"The vast majority of the time, people get shingles because something's up with their immune system," Benson said. "That's why it's most common in people as they grow older."

Chaddock, who had shingles while in school at Doña Ana Community College, is an exception to this trend.

However, Chaddock takes medication for an unknown type of lupus, a disease where the immune system becomes overactive and begins attacking healthy cells and tissue. She was also working two jobs and had four projects due the week that she became infected by the shingles virus.

"I guess it was too much," Chaddock said. "I must have ignored the signs of my body telling me to slow down or something's going to happen."

As more people get vaccinated against chickenpox, Benson said she hopes doctors will see fewer cases of shingles than they see now. The chickenpox vaccine, or varicella vaccine, was first licensed for use in the U.S. by the Food and Drug Administration in 1995.

The varicella vaccine is a two-dose live virus vaccine that is typically now given in childhood. Benson said the vaccine is filled with virus proteins that the body recognizes as foreign and then builds antibodies against to create immunity to chickenpox while not making the recipient sick.

Since recipients of the chickenpox vaccine are actually being injected with the virus, Benson said there is ambiguity over whether someone can get shingles if they get the vaccine.

"We know that there's been a couple of case reports of that, but it doesn't happen very often," Benson said.

The CDC also currently recommends that individuals over 60 years old get the shingles, or herpes zoster, vaccine because they are part of the demographic most affected by the virus. There is also a small chance that people who have had shingles once will get it again.

Benson said the herpes zoster vaccine may not completely prevent people from getting shingles in their later years, but it does have other benefits.

"It helps decrease how bad they are when you do get them, and how long they last," Benson said. "And it helps decrease (chances of) getting postherpetic neuralgia, which can be really horrible and painful."

Alex Wilts can be reached at 575-541-5457.

Symptoms of shingles

Early symptoms of shingles include small red bumps found along a dermatome, which is an area of skin that is given feeling by nerves.

After a few days, the red bumps will turn into fluid-filled blisters.

The shingles rash is usually very painful and could also itch.

The most common places shingles is found are on the trunk and face.

Other symptoms may include fever, fatigue, chills, nausea, diarrhea and difficulty urinating.

If you think you have shingles, you should frequently wash your hands and stay away from people you could get sick.

It is highly recommended to visit a doctor as soon as possible after the shingles rash first appears.

Medication taken for shingles during the first 72 hours after the rash appears can decrease the pain, longevity of the virus and your chances of getting post herpetic neuralgia.

- Dr. Stephanie Benson and familydoctor.org

National Immunization Awareness Month

August is National Immunization Awareness month. Activities focus on encouraging all people to protect their health by being immunized against infectious diseases. In 2014, the National Public Health Information Coalition is coordinating NIAM activities.
For immunization schedules and information, visit cdc.gov/vaccines/events/niam.html.
- Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention