Shingles in Children: Cause and Treatment
Shingles in children happens when the dormant chicken pox virus in their bodies starts to become active again. It is a viral infection and it affects the nerves. It is found to cause pain and it becomes apparent usually because of the rash that appears on one side of the body. The rash tends to form a band like pattern and is generally limited to one area of the body.
It is unclear why shingles in children is inconsistent. Some people experience chicken pox and then there is no further physical evidence of the problem whereas in some other cases the same virus, the Varicella zoster virus of the Herpes family, re-emerges to cause shingles. This Herpes virus is distinct from the one that causes genital herpes.
Shingles seems to affect people with weaker immune systems whether they are adults or children. The cases of shingles in children also show some link to children who experienced chicken pox when very young and to patients whose mother’s had chicken pox while pregnant. But these are only plausible links and there is not clear medical evidence of the exact variables that can be related to children fighting shingles.
Shingles is contagious in that it can infect others but strangely you can catch this virus only if you have not had chicken pox before and it is appear in the new host as chicken pox and not as shingles. Once the rash starts to crust the active infectious stage can be considered to have passed.
Shingles is an illness that arrives with different levels of symptoms. A child may initially complain of a headache and show a heightened sensitivity to light. It is possible to misdiagnose at this stage and think that the child is fighting flu symptoms. Progressively shingles in children manifests as a tingling and itching sensation along the infected nerve. There may also be some related pain. A couple of days after the child complains of a strange sensation you will start to see signs of the rash. The band of rash will become a cluster and these will eventually blister and be filled with fluids. The next stage is when the blisters start to become crusty. It can take as much as 2 or 3 weeks for the blister to start to heal. Unfortunately, there is a real possibility of being scarred by the rash if it is a particularly severe bout. There are some children who experience mild itching and minimal rash and there are also cases where there is no visible rash at all.
Shingles in children can be particular dangerous and hard to deal with if the rash is in the eye-nose region and this can affect other things. Some children with shingles experience dizziness and nausea also.
There is no real treatment for shingles in children. A combination of pain medication and anti-itching lotions may be the best way to cope with the problem. Doctors may suggest some antiviral medication to help speed-up the child’s struggle against the virus. You should focus on keeping the child from scratching the rash or picking at the sores as this is guaranteed to worsen the problem.
Use whatever lotion or cream the doctor suggests to counter the itchiness caused by the shingles. Make sure that the child’s skin stays clean but do not rub or scrub the affect area with any harsh force.
Shingles in children is generally milder than what is experiencing by adults and with some careful monitoring the child should be completely cured very quickly. There is no evidence of any long-term impact from a bout of shingles in children. So, even though there is no real treatment for shingles and the illness can look painful, shingles in children is not something to worry about.