Herpes zoster pictures

Herpes Zoster is a disease commonly known as shingles and is called zona. It is a viral disease characterizing painful skin rash with blisters in a limited area of the body. The initial infection varicella zoster virus (VZV) causes chickenpox which occurs mostly in children and young people. The name herpes zoster is derived from the German word zoster, meaning 'belt' after characteristic belt like dermatomal rash. The name shingles represents Latin cingulus meaning 'girdle'.

The initial symptoms of the herpes zoster include fever, headache and malaise and may result in incorrect diagnosis. These symptoms are followed by burning pain, itching, hyperesthesia (oversensitivity), or paresthesia. The rash turns into clusters of blisters. The rashes near the eye may be cause serious problem and can permanently affect vision. The pain is from mild to extreme in the effected dermatome, with sensation such as stinging, tingling, aching, numbing or thumbing. It is also possible that one could feel dizzy and week. Within three to four days the blisters can become 'ulcers'. Shingles is not a contagious disease but a person can get affected with direct contact (skin to skin) with a blister.

• Shingles is caused when the virus causing chickenpox awakens again in certain nerve cell of the body.
• In some people the virus awakens when disease, stress or aging weakens the immune system.

If rashes appear on the skin, the diseases can be diagnosed by physical examination because only some diseases produce rashes in dermatology. Tsanck smear is very useful in diagnosing the infection with herpes virus. It cannot be differentiated between VZV and HSV. In the absence of rashes, it is difficult to detect herpes zoster.

One of the commonly used tests detects VZV which is a specific IgM antibody in the blood. Such type only appears when the herpes or chickenpox virus is active. Also, the lymph collected from the blister is checked for the polymerase chain reaction for VZV DNA or checked with an electron microscope for virus.

There is a vaccine available for VZV in the market as Zostavax. In cases of few adults, their contact with the children affected with varicella receives immune boost. There are few other medicines also available depeding on the severity of the disease.

Check out the herpes zoster images bellow:

Herpes on back	Herpes zoster on back	Zoster on chest	Herpes zoster on back and arm
Back zoster	Shingles	Skin with zoster	Zoster on neck

Patients having average pain can be given treatment with the counter analgesics. They can use topical lotion with calamine for the rashes. Sometimes for severe pain, one should prefer medicines like morphine.

An antiviral drug stops the VZV replication in the body and reduces the herpes zoster duration with minimum side effect. Acyclovir is the standard drug used but these days more efficient drugs like famciclovir and valacyclovir are used. These both are used as prophylaxis and like a therapy during sensitive time period.

Corticosteroids are commonly used in the treatment of infection even though it has unsuccessful clinical trials.

In normal cases the pain and rashes drop down in 3 to 5 weeks but, in some cases the patients has to face very painful situation called postherpetic neuralgia which is difficult to treat. Herpes zoster can be re-activated as zoster sine herpete but, without an accompanying rash. This condition affects several level of neural system and leads to several cranial neuropathies. During pregnancies, the first infection with VZV can cause infection in the fetus and complexities in the new born, but this chronic infection is not related to fetal infections. The risk of cancer increases after the infection of herpes zoster.

Varicella virus is prevalent worldwide and is highly infectious and can be transferred from one generation to other. Varicella can be fatal to the individual who are affected in the later stages of life or have very low immunity level. Infection of such disease is a problem in hospital which takes care of the patients suffering from varicella.

In general, the herpes zoster is not a seasonal disease and do not have occurrence in epidemics. It is not clear about the level of disease in females. The possible risk factors of the disease include mechanical trauma, exposure to immunotoxins and genetic susceptibility.

The rate of the occurrence of herpes zoster ranges from about 1.2 to 3.4 per 1,000 people per year amongst healthy individuals. Among elders it increases to 3.9 to 11.8 for every 1,000 people. Upon further inspection it was found that the cases do not increases in areas where the vaccine for varicella was not popular.

From the above given information we can conclude that the Herpes zoster is a non contagious disease which can be found in children as well as adults and is caused by the reactivation of VZV virus in the nervous cell leading to rashes. This disease can be fatal if not treated in time.