Shingles vaccine available

A vaccine for shingles: People over 60 should get shingles vaccine: CDC – do I ever wish we had that two years ago and that I was targeted for it, even though I'm still a good number of years away from 60. In May 2005, I was 44 years old and I had the unfortunate experience of having shingles. I didn’t even know what it was until it was too late to do anything about it.

Luckily (?) for me, the shingles were around my belt line. I know people who have had them on the face and suffered severe consequences because of it; all I had was a horrible itchy, painful, awful rash on the waist. I also didn’t realize how sick you could feel with shingles. I thought it was just a rash thing, but it really does affect your whole body.

There are some misconceptions about shingles so let’s see if we can clear up some of them.

First, the medical term for shingles is herpes zoster. The virus itself is from the chicken pox. If you have not had chicken pox, you can’t get shingles. This is why so many people are proponents for the chicken pox vaccine, particularly from those of us who have had shingles.

Once you have had chicken pox, the virus lives in your body for the rest of your life. For most people, the virus lies dormant for that entire time. For some, it flares up, particularly in times of stress – either physical or psychological. This flare results in shingles. It used to be that if someone younger than 60 had shingles, doctors worried about cancer or some other immune deficient illness because it does happen if your body is under stress.

Although having shingles more than once isn’t common – it can happen.

The signs of shingles are very typical. The rash starts with tiny round plaques, spots that can be itchy. Some people feel a burning or itchy rash along the area before the spots begin. The virus follows the nerve path as it leaves the spine – therefore you have will have the rash on one side of the body, but not on the other. The plaques begin to blister and then crust over.

Shingles is and isn’t contagious. If you haven’t had chicken pox, someone with shingles can pass the virus to you and you will develop chicken pox – not shingles. If you have had chicken pox, you cannot catch shingles from someone who has it. However, once you have had chicken pox, you always have the potential of developing shingles. The contagious period covers from the time the blisters start to form to when they are crusted over.

People who catch shingles early enough may benefit from anti-retroviral medications, but otherwise there isn’t much that can be done. Standard pain relievers may be recommended by your doctor.

The strong push towards vaccination against shingles has more behind it than just wanting to prevent the discomfort of shingles. Some people who have shingles develop post-herpetic neuralgia after the rash has healed. This is a painful, deep, nerve pain that continues along the route of where the shingles rash was, although there are no longer any lesions or signs of a rash. This pain can range from bothersome to debilitating.

I have to admit, I never really thought about shingles and how it may affect someone until I had the misfortune of having it. Oddly enough, once I had it, I learned of so many more people my age who also had it.

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Childhood diseases making a comeback

Measles, mumps, German measles and chicken pox: all are childhood diseases that may seem to be benign, but that’s only because we haven’t really seen them – and their effects – for a long time.

When the vaccines for mumps, measles and German measles (rubella) first came out, the medical community had to convince the general population that it was safe and beneficial to have children vaccinated against these diseases. As time went on, it became standard and people just did it. Unfortunately, that became a bit of our problem because since so many children were vaccinated, the number of these cases dropped drastically. With the drastic drop, there’s a whole generation of people who had no idea what it was like to have these diseases and there was a whole generation of people who didn’t know anyone who died or suffered severe disability because of them. Many parents began to choose not to vaccinate.

Add to that the onset of autism and the fear of a link between the vaccines and autism, now we have kids who are open to developing these diseases not just as children, but as they grow into adulthood.

Childhood diseases are not benign. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in an article from the mid 1990s, (Measles) one in 10 children who get the measles get ear infections, as many as one in 20 develop pneumonia and about 1 in every 1000 children develop encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain. People who get encephalitis can have seizures, deafness or mental handicaps. Encephalitis can also cause death.

If a child is infected with mumps, about one out of every 10 develops meningitis (German Measles). While the children may not have the severe effects that measles and mumps can have, if a pregnant woman is exposed to German measles during the first trimester, there is a chance of miscarriage and as high as an 80% chance that the baby will be born either deaf or blind. They could also have other abnormalities with their heart or brain, and there could be brain damage.

Chicken pox is the most recent childhood disease to have a vaccine made available. This is particularly important because anyone who has had chicken pox can develop a painful condition later on in life called shingles, or herpes zoster. Having had shingles myself, I can assure you, it is no picnic.

While most children who get chicken pox come through relatively unscathed, save for some scars on the face or elsewhere, there are some who get significantly sicker. Although rare, encephalitis can occur, as can Reye’s syndrome and myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscles, pneumonia and even arthritis. Children with low immune defences can become quite ill, even die, if they get the chicken pox. Mothers who catch chicken pox while pregnant can deliver babies with congenital infection, meaning babies born with infection.

People who have shingles later on in life can develop a very painful condition called post-herpetic neuralgia. Seniors and people who are immunocompromised are most at risk of developing shingles. People who are vaccinated against chicken pox will not have the virus in their system and cannot develop shingles later on in life.

And now, in 2007, mumps is making the rounds in universities. A recent outbreak in a university in Canada has begun to spread as the students are making their way home for the summer. You can read this Globe and Mail article to learn more: Mumps outbreak moves from the Maritimes to Ontario.

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