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Biotech / Medical : Share your aches,pains,experiences,joys and cures. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Suma who wrote (978)7/8/2007 9:48:24 AM
From: Karen Lawrence  Respond to of 1564
 
Shingles causes a rash with blisters that usually lasts for two to four weeks. The pain associated with the blisters can be quite intense. Once this initial phase is over, nerve pain called postherpetic neuralgia can set in. This pain lasts anywhere from 30 days to months or even years. It can be so severe in some people that it disrupts their lives.

The illness is caused by varicella, the same virus that causes chickenpox. Shingles occurs when the chickenpox virus lying dormant in nerve cells "wakes up" in older people or others with health problems. The vaccine, Zostavax, is actually a boosted dose of the chickenpox vaccine currently given to children.

Postherpetic neuralgia is more common in people older than 60. It occurs in less than 10% of people younger than 60 after a bout of shingles but in more than 40% of people older than 60.
Large Market for Vaccine

There are approximately 50 million Americans over age 60: more than 95% had chickenpox as children, making them vulnerable to shingles.

webmd.com



To: Suma who wrote (978)7/8/2007 9:50:35 AM
From: Karen Lawrence  Respond to of 1564
 
Boy, I don't know...from those whom I've known to have had shingles,(all under 40) I've heard it's excruciating. Yet, I'm leery of vaccines. ONCE, just once, I had a flu shot back in 02 or 03, and for six weeks thereafter had intense headaches and other aches, and I got a killer case of the flu anyway.