Rash of pain: The anguish of shingles

With an increasingly large patient population at risk, researchers focus efforts on uncovering new ways to prevent and treat this perplexing ailment.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. April 1, 2002.

As baby boomers approach 60, one extraordinarily unpleasant and potentially brutally painful medical condition lies in wait: shingles.

The culprit, of course, is the varicella-zoster virus, nestled deep within the nerve cells lined up on either side of the spinal cord. It gained access to these cells probably decades ago, after a bout of the chicken pox, and has stayed there, dormant, ever since.

For people with both luck and a vibrant immune system, the virus remains blissfully asleep. But for those whose resistance flags, the virus can wake up, revealing itself through a chicken pox rash redux.

This rash -- shingles -- often forms a belt-like sweep along the strip of skin enervated by an affected sensory nerve. It is believed that this characteristic rash formation gives the disease its name, derived from cingulum, Latin for belt or girdle.

Each year 600,000 to 1 million Americans are diagnosed with shingles, and those numbers are expected to rise. "We know that the incidence of shingles is highly age-related, and as the population ages the absolute number of patients with shingles is going to increase," said Kenneth Schmader, MD, associate professor of medicine-geriatrics at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N.C.

Also likely to contract the disease are those whose immune systems have been weakened.

Although shingles is not usually considered life-threatening, it is a serious condition. Shingles on the face is particularly serious, as it can sometimes lead to irreversible hearing and vision problems. For example, if the cornea is infected, it can cause temporary or permanent blindness. [...]