When you hear that a loved one has shingles, it's natural to wonder whether or not you need to keep your distance. Especially if what they have is a painful rash. But before you upset your shingles-ridden grandmother by treating her like someone out of Contagion, know this: You can’t exactly catch shingles from somebody—but you can catch chickenpox from them.
After a person has chickenpox and recovers from it, the virus stays in their body but is inactive. At some point, the virus can be reactivated, causing shingles. The reasons for reactivation aren’t totally known, but Amesh A. Adalja, M.D., senior associate at the John’s Hopkins Center for Health Security, tells SELF that stress and a weakened immune system may come into play. It's more common to develop shingles as you get older, since your immune system diminishes over time, but it's possible for anyone to get the rash if they've had chickenpox—even children.
So if you’ve had chickenpox in the past, you won’t catch shingles from someone else. Just being near someone with shingles won't trigger your own body to reactive the the virus. But if you haven’t had chickenpox or been fully vaccinated against it, you could contract the varicella zoster virus from someone with shingles and end up with chickenpox, Dr. Adalja explains. And that, in turn, leaves you open to getting shingles down the road.
“Spread of the varicella zoster virus is usually through respiratory droplets or by contact with skin lesions,” Richard Watkins, M.D., an infectious disease physician and associate professor of internal medicine at Northeast Ohio Medical University, tells SELF, making this a highly contagious virus. So if you never got chickenpox and you haven't been vaccinated, no one would blame you for keeping your distance from someone who currently has shingles.
And you do not want to get shingles. The disease is characterized by a painful, blister-like rash that forms on one side of your face or body. The blisters typically scab over in seven to 10 days, and can take up to four weeks to clear up. Anywhere from one to five days before the rash shows up, people often have pain, itching, or tingling where the rash will develop. Shingles can also cause a fever, headaches, chills, and an upset stomach. There’s also a chance that shingles patients can develop lingering nerve pain known as postherpetic neuralgia, Dr. Adalja says.
While chickenpox—and, by association, shingles—used to be something that nearly everyone got at some point in their lives, both are becoming less common thanks to vaccines for each disease. Children now routinely are given the chickenpox vaccine as part of their regular shots, Dr. Adalja says, and the shingles vaccine, Zostavax, reduces the risk of developing shingles by 51 percent and postherpetic neuralgia by 67 percent, the CDC says.
So if you haven’t had chickenpox, talk to your doctor about getting vaccinated against it. And if you need more motivation, let it be known that adult chickenpox really is worse. Once you’re fully vaccinated, you can be around people with shingles without worrying about catching anything. And if you have shingles, it's not a bad idea to give a heads up to anyone around you who may not have had the chickenpox virus or vaccine yet.
Related:
- Here's Why You Don't Want to Get Chickenpox as an Adult
- WTF Is Shingles, Actually?
- There's a Huge Measles Outbreak in Minnesota Due to Vaccine Skepticism
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