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Becoming infected with a herpes virus is one of the last things a person wants to happen. Yet, with a breed of insidious viruses that travel so easily and so rapidly through the population, it can be hard to avoid. A brush up against the arm of a person who has shingles herpes can cause a person who has never had chickenpox to suddenly come down with it. Unprotected sex with an infected partner could leave a person with a sexually transmitted disease for the rest of his or her life. In this article, you’ll learn a little about this mysterious type of virus and how to treat it.

The frightening thing about shingles herpes, genital herpes and oral herpes is that once you’ve got it, you’re stuck with it. While there are treatments and pain medicine options aimed at soothing an acute outbreak, the virus still lies dormant in the cells for years and years. Currently, researchers are learning more about how killer T-cells get inadvertently “turned off” by this family of viruses — not to mention HIV, another immune-attacking virus.

Herpes viruses have certain symptomatic traits in common as well. For instance, the chickenpox virus, shingles herpes virus and the herpes simplex virus (known as oral or genital herpes) target the mucoepithelial cells, which is what causes the pain-riddled rash and blistering common to both varieties. Similar feelings of intense itching, burning and pain accompany these maladies. Once the initial outbreak has subsided, the Herpesviridae family generally remains latent in the body, causing no symptoms for years before reappearing again. The shingles symptoms and herpes symptoms almost always occur during periods of heightened stress or weakened immune system function.

There is no 100% proven cure for the herpes family yet, but the medication treatment available is often helpful in alleviating some of the suffering and lessening the outbreaks’ duration or severity. For example, the herpes zoster vaccine is recommended for people who are 60+ to significantly reduce their risk of a shingles herpes outbreak. People who already show signs of shingles can receive antiviral medication within 72 hours to prevent serious complications from the virus, as well as pain medication to treat that aspect of it.

Similarly, there are many products on the market targeting cold sore herpes, such as Denavir, Zovirax, Famvir and Valtrex. It’s always best to speak with a doctor before self-medicating.

Shingles disease looks a lot like chickenpox except it usually follows a nerve cluster. So you will notice that it looks to be in an odd pattern on the skin. The skin will be very red and will have blisters. You can even get shingles in the eye!