What causes shingles? It turns out to be like this

Shingles is a common skin disease in people's daily lives and is highly contagious. Therefore, avoiding skin contact with shingles can prevent the transmission of shingles germs. So what exactly causes shingles? In fact, the final reason is still caused by low immunity.

Herpes zoster is an acute infectious skin disease caused by the varicella-zoster virus. Children who are not immune to the virus develop chickenpox when infected. Some patients become carriers of the virus after being infected but do not develop symptoms. Because the virus is neurotropic, it can remain dormant in the neurons of the dorsal root ganglia of the spinal cord for a long time after infection. When the resistance is low or when you are tired, infected, or have a cold, the virus can grow and multiply again and move along the nerve fibers to the skin, causing severe inflammation of the invaded nerves and skin.

The rash is generally unilateral and distributed according to nerve segments, composed of clustered herpes and accompanied by pain; the older the age, the more severe the neuralgia. This disease is more common in the elderly and in spring and autumn. The incidence rate increases significantly with age.

Humans are the only host of the varicella-zoster virus. The virus enters the blood through the respiratory mucosa to form viremia, causing chickenpox or latent infection. The virus can then remain latent in the dorsal root ganglia of the spinal cord or the sensory ganglia of the cranial nerves for a long time. When the body is exposed to some kind of stimulus (such as trauma, fatigue, malignant tumors, or weakness after illness), which causes the body's resistance to decrease, the latent virus is activated and travels down the axons of the sensory nerves to the skin of the area innervated by the nerves, where it replicates and produces blisters. At the same time, the affected nerves become inflamed and necrotic, causing neuralgia. After recovery from this disease, more lasting immunity can be obtained, so it generally will not recur.