A quarter of all Dutch people get shingles at some point: always annoying, and sometimes chronically painful. A vaccine can help.
There are still many misunderstandings about shingles. That it would be a skin disease or that it would be related to poor hygiene, for example. In most cases, the consequences of shingles are limited to skin irritation and fortunately it goes away on its own, but in some cases the consequences are much more serious. Hence the very different experiences you hear about it. For some it is an irritating, but short-lived inconvenience, for others it leads to serious complaints.
Shingles is a legacy of the chickenpox virus
First, what is it anyway? Shingles is, as it were, a legacy of the chickenpox virus, which most people come into contact with as a child. The virus remains latent in the spinal cord after an infection with this varicella zoster virus and can become active again later in life. It is not known what causes the virus to stir again, but it is known that the chance of this is greater if someone’s resistance (temporarily) deteriorates. And since everyone’s immune system responds less and less actively and efficiently after about the age of fifty, the risk of shingles increases after this age.
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