What Causes Shingles?
Shingles is caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox.
If you've had chickenpox (over 90% of US adults have), the virus remains in your body and can cause Shingles.
The chickenpox virus stays inactive in certain nerves.
If the virus becomes active again, usually later in life, it causes the painful disease called Shingles.

How Do You Get Shingles?
You are at risk for getting Shingles if you have had chickenpox. In addition:
Conditions that weaken the body's immune (defense) system, such as aging, cancer, or certain drugs, increase the chance that the virus will become active again, resulting in Shingles.
You should know that there is no way to predict who will get Shingles, or when.
About half of the nearly 1 million Shingles cases in the United States each year occur in people aged 60 years and older.
1 out of 2 people living to age 85 will have Shingles.
The older you get, the longer the Shingles rash may last.

Key Facts About Shingles
Shingles, also called herpes zoster (HZ), can be a painful disease that can affect anyone who has had chickenpox.
It can start at any time, without warning.
The first signs of Shingles are often felt and may not be seen. These can include: itching, tingling and burning. A few days later a rash of fluid-filled blisters appears, usually on one side of the body or face.


Sometimes the pain before the rash appears can be confused with other conditions and this can make Shingles difficult to diagnose early on.

What Are the Risk Factors For Shingles?

Having had chickenpox
Increasing age


A weakened immune (defense) system caused by such things as cancer and certain drugs


Who Is Affected by Shingles?

It is estimated that in the United States up to 1 million cases of Shingles occur every year. As you can see from the bar graph below, Shingles increases with age. Of these 1,000,000 cases, 40% to 50% occur in people 60 years of age and older.
As the population ages, the number of cases of Shingles will most likely increase.

http://www.medicinenet.com/shingles/article.htm

I see my new dr. next week and am hoping she'll give me the "new" vaccine for shingles. It's my understanding that anyone over 60 yrs of age should have this if they had chicken pox as a child.

I'll report back.

OMG Alpo, I just posted about that in SOS! I had NO idea that a shingles vaccination was approved last year and they are targeting for 60 years old +.

I found this at Web MD, had no clue!

From: http://www.webmd.com/news/20061025/s...-routine-at-60

You know what they say about great minds.....

The downside of this is that medicare won't pay for it! and it isn't cheap.

But I don't want to go through what Mr.Alffe went thru with it.

I'm the proud recipient of a shingles vaccination! And it didn't even hurt!

any side effects alffe?

are they giving this to people who have an outbreak? or just if you haven't?

No Curious,I feel fine. My dr. said that anyone over 60 yrs of age and who had chicken pox as a child should get this vaccine. I heard that Medicare won't pay for it...I'll be anxious to see what our insurance does.

grandmonkey got his shots for school last week. totally against what i wanted..but I'M not his mother ya know.

he got the chicken pox vaccine. guess what? he woke up this morning...with a rash all over his whole body.

i think the shingles vaccine is great.

reading the paperwork i got with his shots, him getting the shot quote: It is possible for these people to infect other members of their household.

nice huh?

i hope people petition medicare to pay for the vaccine.