Introduction
At first glance, it may not be possible to imagine much of shingles. Unfortunately this disease is not as romantic as it sounds. If you listen around, one person might connect it with the upper body, another might connect it with the face. What exactly is shingles and can you get it somewhere else, for example on your leg?
Definition
In medical terminology, shingles is called herpes zoster or zoster infection. It is a viral disease that shows its symptoms on the skin, but is a disease of the associated nerve. If the nerves that supply the leg are affected, shingles on the leg develops.
What are the first signs of shingles?
The first signs of shingles are a general feeling of illness and fever, just like on the chest or stomach. Soon after, the typical skin problems appear, which can affect one to three band-like skin areas and are usually only found on one side of the body. These include severe pain as well as a tingling sensation and increased pain when touching the diseased skin area.
In about four days after the onset of pain, a reddish rash and small, tightly standing blisters appear. The diseased skin area on the leg does not follow the typical horizontal boundaries as on the chest and abdomen, but runs as a strip from the side of the leg sloping down to the inside. Paralysis rarely develops in this skin area.
Symptoms of shingles on the leg
Especially in the leg, this symptomatology may be confused with lumbago or a slipped disc in the lumbar spine. At the same time, however, a slightly elevated temperature can be measured, more rarely a fever. After a few days, the skin symptoms of herpes zoster also appear.
It begins with the appearance of small liquid-filled blisters on reddened skin. Later, the blisters become cloudy, burst open and form extensive crusts. As the blisters burst, the pain usually disappears.
It is rare that the blisters begin to bleed or the affected skin dies and turns black (necrosis). Shingles usually heals after 2 to 3 weeks. Itching is strictly speaking a form of pain.
In the case of shingles, it can occur right at the beginning together with the stabbing pain and tingling sensation or later together with the rash and blisters. It should also be treated, as otherwise the patients tend to scratch the blisters. In this way they spread the highly infectious content of the blisters further around the body or transfer it to others.
Children who have not been vaccinated, as well as adults who have not had to suffer from chickenpox, can become infected and develop chickenpox. Shingles is an inflammation of the nerves. This irritation causes pain, rarely paralysis and numbness.
The numbness is caused by damage to the nerve conduits by the virus and usually occurs during the acute phase of the disease. As a rule, no permanent numbness is to be expected, as it subsides after shingles. For this reason, no therapy is performed in this respect.
The inflammation and irritation of nerves caused by the virus can cause severe pain or a tingling sensation in the affected skin area. Pain associated with shingles must be distinguished between those that develop during the course of the disease and soon subside and those that last long beyond the phase of blisters and rash. The latter is called “post-zoster neuralgia“.
They either continue beyond the disease for more than four weeks or do not appear until four weeks after a painless interval. Older people in particular are often affected by this late onset. They are characterized by piercing attacks in addition to the constant pain and a pain of touch, which also occur during the disease. Both pains should be treated by a comprehensive therapy.
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