The Male Health Center - Shingles in Men

Understanding Shingles

It may not sound fancy, but this a serious disease.
Shingles is one of the least known and understood of the common diseases. This despite the facts that more than 900,000 people in the U.S. suffer through painful bouts of it each year and that nearly 90 percent of us are at risk.

Maybe its the lowly name—derived from a Latin word that means to encircle the body—that keeps shingles from getting much respect. Its medical name, varicella-zoster virus (often called herpes zoster), sounds much fancier. But no one who has lived with shingles—suffering numbness; shooting pain in the chest, arms, or legs; and itching rashes and blisters—would make light of it.

Shingles is actually a recurrence of a childhood disease, chickenpox. About a tenth of the people who get chickenpox will develop shingles later in life—most after age 50, with the greatest risk between 60 and 79. We don't know why some otherwise healthy older people develop shingles while others don't. But we do know that people with immune systems weakened by age, stress, or immune-suppressing therapies such as radiation or chemotherapy are more susceptible.

Although it's not a deadly disease, shingles can turn what should have been a delightful retirement into a time of misery. About 50 percent of people over 60 who have shingles face chronic pain, which is difficult to treat once it's taken hold and can last indefinitely. Other complications include a risk to vision and hearing should shingles develop near the eyes or ears.

Understanding the symptoms of shingles is vitally important, because antiviral medications—which can greatly reduce the severity and length of an outbreak—are most effective if given within the first two or three days. Shingles' most obvious symptoms—the rash and blisters—don't appear until it's too late. You need to watch for the early warning signs, which include:

numbness, pain, or discomfort in a major nerve in or under the skin,
shooting pain around the chest or in an arm or leg,
mild flu-like symptoms such as fever, headache, or nausea.

Unfortunately, these sorts of symptoms are hardly unique to shingles, and many people dismiss them as the wages of age.

Please don't assume that growing older means you're supposed to feel poorly. If you're not feeling your best, talk to your doctor. He or she can help—and your vigilance may head off a nasty encounter with a disease with an undignified name.

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