Shingles

But they said in the story you can't develop shingles if you haven't had chickenpox. It is contagious, though, so those who haven't had chickenpox might get the contagion. That's what I got from the story, anyway?

yes, they said that in the story, but they were incorrect. I learned this from my nursing class. And my grandma gets shingles because she had chickenpox when she was younger. My coworker also had shingles and asked me if I had the chickenpox and I said no and she reassured me that I'll be fine then. I also put a link that has a correct cause of Shingles.

Ah. I had wondered about that actually.

It did seem kind of odd that you could catch shingles if you hadn't had the chickenpox but your body could only develop them if you DID have chickenpox.

Still, there is something odd about that, too. For most infections, if you haven't already had the virus you wouldn't be immune to it. Kinda weird that shingles works the opposite way.

yea it is. its because it has a hidden varicella virus it's in your nerves still. It's like having chickenpox again but 10x worse.

Ah, that makes sense, then.

When my sisters were little they got chicken pox at the same time. I never broke out with chicken pox, however, the virus was in my system. Seven years later, at 15 years old, I got shingles....which ran down both underarms, down each side of my torso (VERY PAINFUL). I haven’t started this story yet, but thought I’d share my experience.

T_T

It’s true that you need to have had chickenpox to get shingles, but if you have not had chickenpox and come in contact with the weeping blisters of shingles (that form in a band, along a nerve line) you can become infected with chickenpox. If you’ve had chickenpox you are either immune to the shingles virus or you suffer from shingles yourself, but you can’t get a case of shingles from another person.

So if you can become infected with chickenpox (rather than shingles) when you come into contact with the shingles virus on an infected person (if you've never had chickenpox), that seems a little less odd.

That’s right and chickenpox is usually a mild disease for children but can be quite severe in adults, so you would definitely not allow an adult who had not had chickenpox to come in contact with your shingles rash.

Okay, makes sense!

honestly it depends from where ur from. where im from, pretty much everyone gets chickenpox, but not shingles. (asia). its pretty different here in America though.

Yup