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Definition
By Mayo Clinic staffShingles is a viral infection that causes a painful rash. Although shingles can occur anywhere on your body, it most often appears as a band of blisters that wraps from the middle of your back around one side of your chest to your breastbone.
Shingles is caused by the varicella-zoster virus — the same virus that causes chickenpox. After you've had chickenpox, the virus lies inactive in nerve tissue near your spinal cord and brain. Years later, the virus may reactivate as shingles.
While it isn't a life-threatening condition, shingles can be very painful. Vaccines can help reduce the risk of shingles, while early treatment can help shorten a shingles infection and lessen the chance of complications.
- Shingles: Hope through research. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/shingles/detail_shingles.htm. Accessed June 17, 2009.
- Ferri FF. Herpes zoster. In: Ferri's Clinical Advisor 2009. Philadelphia, Pa.: Mosby Elsevier; 2009. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/143941389-3/853489074/1701/269.html#4-u1.0-B978-0-323-04134-8..50011-2--subchapter24_5768. Accessed June 17, 2009.
- Shingles disease: Questions and answers (herpes zoster). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/shingles/dis-faqs.htm. Accessed June 17, 2009.
- Albrecht MA. Epidemiology and pathogenesis of varicella-zoster virus infection: Herpes zoster. http://uptodate.com/home/index/html. Accessed June 18, 2009.
- AgePage: Shingles. National Institute on Aging. http://www.niapublications.org/agepages/shingles.asp. Accessed June 18, 2009.
- Varicella (chickenpox) vaccine Q&A. Centers for Disease and Prevention. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/varicella/vac-faqs-gen.htm. Accessed June 18, 2009.
- Herpes zoster vaccine Q&A (Shingles). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/shingles/vac-faqs.htm. Accessed June 18, 2009.
