Chickenpox is a perpetual herpes virus that has serious side effects

May 11, 2019, 21:19 UTC

By Linda Carroll

The Kentucky teenager who has caught chickenpox after refusing to be vaccinated for religious reasons may not realize that herpes virus infection can have consequences for long term.

Family lawyer Jerome Kunkel, 18, told NBC News that the Kentucky Health Department had overreacted by ordering unvaccinated students not to go to school. during an outbreak of chicken pox in March.

The Kunkel family says they do not regret the teenager who contracted the virus because he is now immune.

"It's pretty funny, they build a mountain from a molehill," said Christopher Wiest, the Kunkel family's advocate. "Jerome got it, it was a little itchy and went back to school.

Chickenpox is a type of herpes

But like many people who consider chickenpox as a normal part of their growth, they may not realize that recovering from the disease does not mean that the virus is gone or that they are immune to it. a future problem.

In fact, chicken pox – technically known as chicken pox virus – is a type of herpes virus that, just like its close relative herpes simplex, becomes a resident for life in the body.

And like his other cousin, genital herpes, chicken pox can remain silent for many years, hiding inside nerve cells and can reactivate later, wreaking havoc in the form of pills. an excruciating skin disorder, shingles.

Chickenpox "is wrongly viewed as a rite of passage from childhood not too unpleasant," said Dr. Nina Shapiro, a professor at the School of Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles, director of pediatric otolaryngology service at UCLA. and the author of "Hype: A doctor's guide to medical myths, exaggerated claims and bad advice – how to say what is real and what is not."

The image of chicken pox as a benign disease has led to misbehaved behaviors, such as taking children to chickenpox evenings, Shapiro said in an email.

According to experts, these children could pay the price decades later This is because the chickenpox virus is hiding, asleep, in the nerve cells of the whole body, waiting for the possibility of s' to explode again in the form of shingles, a burning and burning rash. And shingles has its own risks: people who developed shingles had a risk of heart attack almost 60% higher and a risk of stroke by 35% higher, according to a recent study. About one million people develop shingles each year in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Anything that weakens a person's immune system – mental and physical stress, HIV, cancer, critical illness, surgery, drugs, chemotherapy or radiation therapy, transplant – increases the risk of developing shingles, regardless of age." Said Dr. Tina Tan. , professor of pediatrics at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University and pediatric infectious disease specialist at Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital.

That said, "shingles occur more frequently with age, with a significant increase in incidence in people aged 50 and older," Tan said in an email. "Anyone who has been infected with varicella zoster virus is at risk of developing shingles."

Older people are more likely because our immune system is deteriorating with age, Tan said.

According to the CDC, shingles appear on one side of the body or face in the form of a rash consisting of painful blisters that usually crack in seven to ten days. One to five days before the rash erupts, people often feel pain, itching or tingling. The disease may also be accompanied by fever, headache, chills and stomach upset. The CDC estimates that one in three will develop shingles at some point in their lives.

Even after one person has overcome shingles, the pain may not disappear completely. Some continue to experience "post-herpetic pain" where the rash has erupted.

Shingles can enter the eyes

And in a frightening complication, shingles can affect the eyes and cause vision loss.

The number of Americans diagnosed with these eye complications has tripled between 2004 and 2016, according to a large study from the University of Michigan's Kellogg Eye Center presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Vision Research and Ophthalmology 2019 in Vancouver.

In fact, about 15% of people with shingles are affected by the eyes, said Dr. Ivan Schwab, clinical spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology and professor of ophthalmology at the University. from California, Davis.

Schwab explained that what is happening is that shingles follows a single branch of nerves. If this affects the branch that goes to the face, the eyes may be involved. In addition to pain, it can damage vision or cause blindness in a small percentage of patients.

"Others may have less damage, but enough to affect their lives," Schwab said. "A surgeon, for example, may no longer be able to operate."

How to avoid shingles

The best protection against shingles is to never catch chickenpox.

"A person must have had chicken pox to develop shingles," Tan said. "If a person has never had chicken pox, they will not develop shingles."

According to doctors, zoster vaccines are the best defense against shingles in people over 50 years old.

Linda Carroll is a regular contributor to NBC News and Reuters Health's health programs. She is co-author of "The Crisis of Concussions: The Anatomy of a Silent Epidemic" and "Breaking Out of the Clouds: The Unlikely Rider and the Unwanted Colt That Conquered the Sport of Kings".