Vaccine Brings Some Relief for Shingles Sufferers

Good news for people who suffer outbreaks of shingles, the food and drug administration has approved a vaccine that cuts the risk of the very painful and sometimes dangerous skin rash by fifty percent.

Shingles, caused by a virus  known as Herpes Zoster, is a common and very uncomfortable condition. Herpes Zoster the same virus that causes chicken pox in children. It generally affects adults over fifty years of age, who have either had a case of chicken pox, or have received the chicken pox vaccine.

The symptoms of shingles commonly last around two weeks though can in some cases last for a much longer duration, the primary symptom being discomfort which in many cases can be quite severe. Some other less common symptoms may include fever, headache and nausea. In rare instances shingles has led to pneumonia, encephalitis or even death.

Shingles themselves are not contagious from one individual to another, but there have been cases where an individual has caught the chickenpox virus from someone with an outbreak of shingles. Once a person contract the chickenpox virus, the virus will lay dormant in the body and can resurface later in life in the form of shingles.

The vaccine was approved by the FDA in 2006, and it was reported that during studies the vaccine prevented shingle outbreaks in nearly fifty percent of people sixty years of age and older. Clinical studies also show that the vaccine can drastically reduce the pain commonly associated with outbreaks of shingles as well.

The vaccine is only intended for adults over sixty years of age who have had chickenpox. Shingles does not typically affect people under the age of fifty and is much more common as the age increases. Studies show the vaccine will protect against shingles outbreaks for a period of five years, researchers are still studying the effects of the vaccine over a ten year period.

People suffering from HIV, AIDS or any other disease that may affect the immune system, as well as people undergoing treatments for cancer or with history of cancer, or those suffering with active tuberculosis are not good candidates for the vaccine. People who have had allergic reactions to gelatin or neomycin are also among those who shouldn’t receive the vaccine.

Anyone who has had chickenpox is at risk for an outbreak of shingles and an estimated twenty percent of people who’ve had chickenpox will at one point in their life experience an outbreak of shingles. In excess of one million people a year will suffer painful outbreaks of shingles and some of these poor people will suffer from multiple outbreaks each year, this one dose vaccine could conceivably cut that number in half. People who suffer from shingles outbreaks are often in continual pain for periods of week, sometimes months.