Patient/caregiver was educated on pathophysiology of shingles as follows:
- Shingles is a painful skin rash, caused by the virus causing chickenpox, varicella-zoster.
- In individuals with history of chickenpox infection, the virus can live latent and inactive in various nerves of the body for years.
- Strong and intact immune system can help keeping the virus latent, thus preventing it’s reactivation.
- The latent virus has the potential to get reactivated in future, especially under conditions of compromised immune system.
- Shingles rash can involve any part of the body, depending on the nerves involved. Most often, shingles rash appears as a stripe of fluid-filled blisters, involving one side of the trunk, chest, or the face.
- The activation of virus in the nerves can spread down along the nerve path it is living in, causing a painful blistering rash with itching and burning along the distribution of the nerve involved.
- The shingles activation is mostly self-limited, with the burning pain and itching continuing for two to four weeks, until the rash resolves. Patients could continue to experience some deep burning pain for prolonged periods of time, after the rash resolved.
