Shingles Risk

The shingles risk of all adults is about 25 percent, mostly otherwise healthy, who will get shingles during their lifetimes, usually after age 40. The incidence increases with age so that shingles is 10 times more likely to occur in adults over 60 than in children under 10.

Shingles Risk & immune systems

People with compromised immune systems - from use of immunosuppressive medications such as prednisone, from serious illnesses such as cancer, or from infection with HIV - are at special risk of developing shingles. These individuals also can have re-eruptions and some may have shingles that never heals. Most people who get shingles re-boost their immunity to VZV and will not get the disease for another few decades.

Youngsters whose mothers had chickenpox late in pregnancy - 5 to 21 days before giving birth - or who had chickenpox in infancy, have an increased risk of pediatric shingles. Sometimes these children are born with chickenpox or develop a typical case within a few days.

Shingles Risk, Catching Chickenpox without Catching Shingles

Chickenpox and shingles are caused by the same virus - varicella-zoster (VZV). When a person, usually a child, who has not received the chickenpox vaccine (which became available in the United States in 1995) is exposed to VZV, he or she usually develops chickenpox, a highly contagious disease that can be spread by breathing as well as by contact with the rash.

The infection begins in the upper respiratory tract where the virus incubates for 15 days or more. VZV then spreads to the bloodstream and migrates to the skin, giving rise to the familiar chickenpox rash.

Shingles Risk - non-Transferrable

In contrast, you can´t catch shingles from someone else. You must already have been exposed to chickenpox and harbor the virus in your nervous system to develop shingles. When reactivated, the virus travels down nerves to the skin, causing the painful shingles rash.

In shingles, the virus does not normally spread to the bloodstream or lungs, so the virus is not shed in air. Because the shingles rash contains active virus particles, someone who has never had chickenpox can catch it from exposure to a shingles rash.