Shingles Treatment

Shingles treatment can make attacksbe less severe and shorter by using prescription antiviral drugs: acyclovir, valacyclovir, or famcyclovir. Acyclovir is available in a generic form, but the pills must be taken five times a day, whereas valacyclovir and famcyclovir pills are taken three times a day.

Shingles Treatment with antiviral drugs

It is important not to miss any doses and not to stop taking the medication early. Antiviral drugs can reduce by about half the risk of being left with postherpetic neuralgia, which is chronic pain that can last for months or years after the shingles rash clears.

Doctors recommend starting antiviral drugs at the first sign of the shingles rash, or even if the telltale symptoms indicate that a rash is about to erupt. Even if a patient is not seen by a doctor at the beginning of the illness, it may still be useful to start antiviral medications if new lesions are still forming. Other treatments to consider are anti-inflammatory corticosteroids such as prednisone. These are routinely used when the eye or other facial nerves are affected.

virus containment and Shingles Treatment

A person with a shingles rash can pass the virus to someone, usually a child, who has never had chickenpox, but the child will develop chickenpox, not shingles. The child must come into direct contact with the open sores of the shingles rash.

Merely being in the same room with a shingles patient will not cause the child to catch chickenpox because during a shingles infection the virus is not normally in the lungs and therefore can´t be spread through the air.

chicken pox and Shingles Treatment

People with chickenpox cannot communicate shingles to someone else although they can of course pass the chickenpox on to someone who has never had chickenpox. In cases of chickenpox, the virus can become airborne because it is found in the upper respiratory tract.

Shingles occurs when an unknown trigger causes the virus hiding inside the person´s body to become activated. Unlike chickenpox, shingles can´t be "caught" from someone else.