Do you know what shingles is? If this question were asked among the population, the majority answer would probably be negative. The little knowledge that exists about this pathology is, precisely, one of the main concerns of the experts, who therefore defend greater health education around this skin rash.
Specifically, herpes zoster (HZ) is a skin rash that arises as a result of the reactivation of the chickenpox virus . All people who have had the disease have the virus dormant – colloquially, asleep – and, as age advances, or the immune system ages, the probability of reactivation increases, causing a skin rash that in some cases could become Very painful.
Symptoms of shingles
This rash is also known as “shingles” and one of the most frequent sequelae is postherpetic neuralgia: very strong neurological pain. A possible manifestation of the virus can occur on the facial surface, affecting the periocular area, the skin and the eyelids. Also in the eye, a less common reactivation but where it can cause significant visual damage.
Pedro Arriola Villalobos, an ophthalmologist at the San Carlos Clinical Hospital (Madrid), indicates in an interview with Muy Interesante that deep eye damage is less frequent than superficial damage and that most people do not have to have sequelae. However, a considerable percentage of people do and it is a problem that can be avoided with the vaccine .
Arriola highlights several studies regarding the efficacy of the vaccine. For example, one carried out in Australia, where by vaccinating people between 70 and 80 years old, nearly 7,000 cases of HZ have been avoided in just two years. On the other hand, in Germany, a study has been published showing that the vaccine prevented 95.4 percent of cases in people over 70 years of age.
Existing complications around ocular involvement can manifest complications that range from the skin of the eyelid (blepharitis) and/or the conjunctiva (conjunctivitis), which do not usually produce sequelae, to the involvement of the cornea (keratitis) that can produce them. . The reason? If HZ affects deeper layers of the cornea than the epithelium, it can produce a scar called leukoma, which can reduce vision or produce irregular astigmatism. On the other hand, intraocular inflammation (uveitis) can cause sequelae such as cataracts or glaucoma , and inflammation of the retina (retinitis) can cause significant visual sequelae.
Depending on the clinical picture of the patient, the treatment goes through oral antivirals , topical treatments and ointments. Sometimes it is necessary to administer topical corticosteroids due to their anti-inflammatory effect and in severe cases of retinitis and neuritis (inflammation of the nerves), the patient must be hospitalized for intravenous antiviral treatment. Also, on other occasions, it is necessary to inject the treatment into the vitreous chamber, which is the area between the lens and the retina.
According to the specialist, HZ reactivations often do not imply a viral reactivation , but they can cause an inflammation that can tend to become chronic, which is why Arriola is committed to the inclusion of the vaccine against this pathology in the vaccination schedules of the autonomous communities.
