Shingles: Sounds harmless, but it is a serious infectious disease that can have long-lasting consequences. Find out more about possible complications and how you can protect yourself from illness here.
Shingles – a name that hardly gives away the suffering the disease can cause. And what many people don’t know is that more than 95% of people over the age of 60 already carry the virus that can cause shingles. Statistically, one in three people will develop shingles during their lifetime. Up to 30% of those affected suffer serious complications and long-term consequences such as post-herpetic neuralgia (PZN). Due to damaged nerve tracts, the severe pain can last for months even after the illness, often even for years or permanently.
pain expert dr. Michael A. Everywhere, medical doctor and President of the German Pain League eV, explains why:
“Due to the infestation of sensitive nerve cells – i.e. the nerve fibers that are responsible for registering and transmitting sensations such as e.g. B. pain, temperature, touch or pressure etc. are responsible from the body via the spinal cord to the brain – the acute shingles disease usually leads to severe pain that can only rarely be adequately treated with the usual means. The reason for this is the fact that the inflammatory reactions triggered by the varicella-zoster virus not only affect the visible areas of the skin, but also the nerve fibers through which the virus has spread locally. This damage massively changes the conduction behavior of the nerve cells. This can be compared to a power cable where the protective insulating layers between the conductive cable sections have been damaged and short circuits occur. For those affected, this not only results in excruciating constant pain of varying intensity as a result of the local skin inflammation, but also in abnormal or incorrect sensations as well as highly intense, unpredictable, electrifying shooting pain peaks as a result of direct nerve damage, acute zoster neuralgia. In 20% of patients over the age of 60, the symptoms can last longer than a year. For this reason, acute shingles is also considered a pain therapy emergency and should be treated with pain medicine as a priority and at an early stage.”
If shingles occurs on the face, it can even endanger vision, and meningitis and spinal cord inflammation can also occur. In addition, there is an increased risk of a heart attack or stroke in the first few months after the illness. Shingles disease can severely impair an active everyday life over a long period of time.