Risk of shingles rises with age

AROUND one in three New Zealanders who have had chickenpox will one day contract shingles.

If you’ve had chickenpox, and most adult New Zealanders have, you are already carrying the virus that causes it.

Having contracted chickenpox, usually as a child, the virus never leaves your body.

It stays dormant in your nervous system and can re-emerge as shingles at any time.

If you’re 50 or older, the risk of shingles rises. When you’re young, your immune system is usually strong enough to keep the virus in check, but as you age it becomes easier to break through your body’s defences. By the age of 85 one in two people will have had shingles.

Two-thirds of all cases occur in people over the age of 50.

Shingles is a painful rash that develops on one side of the face, body or head.

The rash is made up of small blisters that typically scab over after 7-10 days, but it is often preceded by pain, itching or tingling in the area where the rash it will develop, most commonly on the back or upper abdomen, but sometimes on one side of the face.

Other symptoms can include fever, headache, chills and an upset stomach.

The pain or irritation will usually go away in three to five weeks, but if the virus damages a nerve, pain, numbness or tingling may last for months or even years after the rash has healed.

You can’t catch shingles from someone else. However, if you’ve never had chickenpox, or never received the chickenpox vaccine, you can catch chickenpox from close contact with someone who has shingles, because the blisters contain the chickenpox virus.

As the virus is spread through direct contact with fluid from the blisters, a person with shingles is infectious when the rash is in the blister phase, until the rash has developed crusts.

From April 1 this year through to March 31, 2020, those aged 65 to 80 inclusive will be eligible for free shingles immunisation. Those who are not eligible are welcome to contact our clinics for pricing. To make an appointment phone Te Hiku Hauora GP Clinic on (09) 408-0049, Mamaru Clinic on (09) 406-0074, or the Kaitaia Health Centre on (09) 408-1300.

For more information visit www.shingles.co.nz or www.health.govt.nz

CARE TAKEN: Someone apparently went to some trouble to carefully place this presumably defunct television set just off SH1 at the Soda Spring, at the southern end of the Mangamuka Gorge. Usually rubbish is simply heaved over a handy bank, which put this piece of junk in a class of its own.