Yes, shingles can recur. Shingles is a herpesvirus, specifically herpes zoster - the chickenpox virus. After a person is infected with chickenpox - usually as a child, the virus regresses to the nerve ganglia (groups of nerve cell bodies). It cannot be completely cured.
During times of stress or illness, the virus may re-activate, causing a rash usually preceded for several days by burning pain. The pain and rash is usually one sided and follows one dermatome (nerve distribution). The rash may last for up to a week before it subsides again. Typically, after the first episode, the pain and rash do not last as long as the first episode, however this may be variable.
Treatment is available. Antiviral medications, such as valacyclovir (Valtrex) have been proven to decrease the length of time of outbreaks. It does not prevent outbreaks, however.
Long time complications of shingles may include persistent pain in a dermatomal distribution. If the rash occurs on the face or near the eyes, you should be checked immediately. This condition is called zoster ophthalmicus, and may result in permanent blindness.
No, they cannot. There are no separate strains to encounter. However, shingles have been known to recur over intervals of months to years, with no obvious stimulus.
You could get the vaccine if you already had shingles; but it may not help you from recurrence of zoster, which by the way is less than 5%. If it does recur, the vaccine may help you.
If you have shingles that recur only a week after treatment, you should seek further treatment. This very painful condition will eventually go away on its own, but treatment can help to shorten the length of time you must put up with the pain.
Children do not get shingles, they get chicken pox. The herpes zoster virus never goes away, it is just inactive until some physical stress causes it to flare up again, usually in the elderly. When it does, it is referred to as shingles.
No. While you can catch chickenpox, shingles comes from a virus already within you (chickenpox virus) so you can only have shingles if you have previously had chickenpox. I myself had shingles back when I was in the fourth grade but neither my brother nor my sister ever had it.
Chickenpox is a viral disease that can occur in childhood as a mild illness but can reappear in adulthood as shingles, a more serious form. Shingles can cause severe pain and complications such as nerve damage.
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.
Yes
You catch shingles in old age because you had chicken pox as a child. Children catch chicken pox from other children with chicken pox or from old people with shingles. While no one inherits shingles, it may seem that way because children who caught chicken pox from their grandparents with shingles will give chicken pox to their grandchildren when they get old and get shingles unless the grandchildren get a vaccination for chickenpox.
I've heard that you should not be around children or pregnant women for 4 weeks after receiving the shingles vaccine - is that true?
Abdominal hernias generally do not recur in children but can recur in up to 10% of adult patients. Surgery is considered the only cure, and the prognosis is excellent if the hernia is corrected before it becomes strangulated. Hiatal hernias are.
Consult with a doctor