Skin is the biggest organ in human body and can be affected by many disease processes. One of them is shingles, a very contagious disease that is caused by varicella zoster virus (VZV). Shingles is caused by reactivation of a previous infection with this virus that results in a very painful localized skin rash usually with blisters (fluid-filled sacs) on top of reddish skin. After a person recovers from chickenpox, the virus stays dormant (inactive) in the body and reactivates years later, causing shingles (Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2015). Before rash appears, the patent experiences tingling, numbness, and itching on affected site. Although shingles can occur anywhere on the body, it most often appears as a unilateral …show more content…
Additionally, the virus that causes shingles can be spread from a person with active shingles to another person who has never had chickenpox. In such cases, the person exposed to the virus might develop chickenpox, but he or she would not develop shingles. A person is not infectious before the blisters appear, and once the rash has developed crusts, the person is no longer contagious (CDC, 2015). The treatment of shingles includes the use of analgesic like paracetamol, non-steroids anti-inflammatory drugs, opiated, corticosteroids injection, or gabapentin for neuropathic pain. The oral antiviral medication, commonly acyclovir, is usually started in patients with symptoms within 72 hours of the rash. The use of antiviral medication reduce the duration and severity of pain Shingles are difficult to diagnose when they are in dormant stage, it means when the patient does not have a rash. Diagnose is usually made after clinical examination, rather than through virological testing (Shostak, & Conceicao, 2015), and can be seen in the symptoms of burning, tingling, numbness or pruritus, 1-4 days before the appearance of the mam