Causes - Symptoms

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Causes
Shingles is a second eruption of the varicella-zoster virus — the same virus that causes chickenpox.

Varicella-zoster is part of a group of viruses called herpes viruses, which includes the viruses that cause cold sores and genital herpes. Many of these viruses can lie hidden in your nervous system after an initial infection and remain inactive for years before causing another infection.

Anyone who's had chickenpox may develop shingles. If your immune system doesn't destroy the entire virus during the initial infection, the remaining virus can enter your nervous system and lie hidden for years. Eventually, it may reactivate and travel along nerve pathways to your skin — producing the shingles.

The reason for the encore is unclear. But it may be due to lowered immunity to infections as you grow older. Shingles is more common in older adults and in those who have weak immune systems

Symptoms
The signs and symptoms of shingles may include:
Pain, burning, tingling, numbness or extreme sensitivity in a certain part of your body
A red rash that begins a few days after the pain
Fluid-filled blisters that break open and crust over
Itching
Fever and chills
Headache
Upset stomach or abdominal pain
Typically, the shingles rash occurs on only one side of your body. This is an important sign to help diagnose shingles. It may appear, for example, as a band of blisters that wraps from the middle of your back around one side of your chest to your breastbone, following the path of the nerve where the virus had been inactive. Sometimes, the shingles rash occurs around one eye or on one side of the neck or face.

Pain is usually the first symptom of shingles. For some, it can be intense, with just the slightest touch causing severe pain. Sometimes the pain can be mistaken for other problems or diseases, such as kidney stones, gallstones or appendicitis, depending on its location. Some people experience the pain without the rash, which makes diagnosing shingles more difficult.

Although the shingles rash may resemble chickenpox, the virus typically causes more pain and less itching the second time around.