According to my grandfather, if you have chickenpox, or have had chickenpox as a child, then you are prone to having shingles. If you are above the ago of 40 or 50, you have a good chance o getting it too. There are many other reasons to get shingles, I don't know them all.
Submitted by: Rachel, age 11, Michigan
Shingles is caused by the chickenpox virus. You do not get shingles from someone with shingles; you get chickenpox from someone with shingles. Then when you get older, you will get shingles because you had chickenpox. Or, you might get older and never get chickenpox. In that case, you will thank your mother for having you vaccinated against chickenpox when you were a child.
Scabies and chicken box are unrelated infections, and having chicken pox in the past does not protect against scabies.
Once you get the chicken pox infection, the virus gets hidden in your posterior root ganglion. How does it evades the immune system is poorly understood. It comes out in the form of herpes zoster or shingles, when your immunity lowers down. There is no mutation of the virus.
Shingles comes from having chickenpox in the past. It stays in your body and as you age it comes out as shingles. There is a shot for it.
Shingles comes from having chickenpox in the past. It stays in your body and as you age it comes out as shingles. There is a shot for it.
Shingles is not contagious -- it can't be "caught" from someone else. People with shingles can give you chickenpox if you haven't had it. See related link below for information on transmitting shingles
You had to have had chickenpox once to later develop shingles (a flareup of latent chickenpox virus still in the body). That initial case of chickenpox usually confers lifetime immunity to chickenpox, so you cannot be reinfected. But the immune system often is unable to totally eradicate the chickenpox virus from the body, only keep it at a very low "latent" level that is not contagious and causes no symptoms. Then as one gets older, sporadically the immune system loses control and the latent chickenpox virus growth flares, however instead of producing chickenpox symptoms it produces shingles symptoms. Eventually the immune system again gets control of the chickenpox virus in the body, which returns to latent levels again and the shingles goes away.
Adults can get both chickenpox and shingles. Prior to universal vaccination in the US, chickenpox was considered a "childhood" disease. Since vaccination became routine, the average age of chickenpox patients has increased. The virus that causes the disease, varicella zoster virus, lives, dormant, in the spinal cord after the disease is over . In later adult years, this can flare up again as shingles. An adult who never had chickenpox or the vaccine can't get shingles. Between one in five and one in three adults will get shingles after having chickenpox.
First, you can't "catch shingles" from someone. You can get chickenpox from someone who has shingles, but only if two things are true:You have direct contact with the weeping shingles lesions; ANDYou have not had chickenpox or chickenpox vaccine in the past.You can't get chickenpox from someone with shingles if you are immune. You can't get it from being in the same room with them, either. A person with shingles can go about normal activities, including all work or school, as long as the lesions are covered.
Yes, shingles vaccine is recommended for patients 60 and over whether they remember having chickenpox or not (see related link). You still could get shingles even if you don't remember having chickenpox.
If you had it as a baby, it could be chickenpox: if not enough immunity is built up the first time, then the varciella-zoster virus can strike again, as chickenpox, not shingles.
Natural immunity to chickenpox results from previous infection. There is no other way to be naturally immune to chickenpox. Sometimes, the previous infection may be mild enough that the disease was not noticed. You can become artificially immune to chickenpox by getting chickenpox vaccine.