The Dangers and Treatment of Shingles: Eye and Face Break Outs
Painful and dangerous, shingles eye or herpes zoster ophthalmicus should be looked after immediately. The eye is a sensitive area and when there is a chance that vision can be disrupted you need a doctor’s care.
Shingles in the eyes is a result of the quietly waiting virus known as varicella-zoster. If you’ve had chicken pox in the past, the varicella-zoster virus is present in your body from then on. It can erupt much later in life as shingles, whether in the eye or elsewhere. Often senior citizens will develop them, but it can come on at any age.
Many people who have had chicken pox never develop shingles, but it’s nearly impossible to count yourself in one camp or the other. Almost 20% of people in North America experience shingles at least once.
Shingles come on when the immune system is low or suppressed. Poor diet, advanced age, sickness, radiation, prescription drugs and various other medical treatments all decrease your immunities and increase your chance of contracting them.
What Does It Look Like When Shingles Develop in the Eye?
Although shingles more commonly erupt on the torso and neck, it can move to the eye, cheeks and forehead. Often the rash is preceded by general fever, weakness and headache. When it does break out, the rash is painful, with many tiny blisters that itch from the moment they appear.
This is extremely irritating in certain areas that experience break outs of shingles, eye and face being the most irritated. It’s difficult to itch your eye given the sensitivity, the shape of the socket and constant tearing and blinking that further exasperates the itch.
The rash will last from seven to ten days, but the pain can go on for longer. The skin is left scabbed. The severity and length of the shingles break out is usually dependant on the strength of the immune system. The lower it goes, the longer the shingles will likely last.
With shingles, eye nerves may be at risk of contracting the virus. Occasionally the virus travels to other organs in the body. When it reaches out to the nerves and tissue in and around the eye, major damage can be the result. Blindness is a possibility, as is Ramsay Hunt syndrome, a condition which can leave your face paralyzed and other senses like hearing and taste dulled or eliminated.
Contact your optometrist if any signs of shingles show up near your eye. You will likely have to be monitored throughout the break out to watch the eye carefully. But you may also be offered treatment for the virus.
Treatments and Preventatives for Shingles
Although there isn’t anything to cure shingles, an anti-fungal medication will lessen the symptoms and cause the rash to scar over sooner, likely limiting the damage to the skin and area. This can be helpful with eye shingles.
Anti-fungal medications work better the sooner that you take them, within three days of the rash break out is best.
For relief of the pain and soreness that comes with shingles, use an anti-inflammatory over-the-counter drug like ibuprofen. Cool, wet compresses against the eye may also work to soothe the skin and relieve the itching.
There is talk that the occurrence of shingles will decrease now that children are receiving the chicken pox vaccine. That means fewer kids contracting the varicella-zoster virus and fewer cases of shingles occurring.
The best means of avoiding it, whether you’ve had the chicken pox or not, is to keep your immune system strong. You can do this through diet, exercise and good sleep. That way the quiet and patient virus will not be tempted to rear its ugly head and you won’t develop shingles, eye or otherwise.