3 - Who will get shingles?
Anyone who has had chickenpox can develop shingles ? and most people have chickenpox in childhood: it is one of the common childhood illnesses and is usually trivial. (Chickenpox in adults can be more distressing; but it is generally no more serious than in children.)
Shingles is more likely to occur in older people and by the age of 85, around 60% of us will have had shingles.
People who have not had chickenpox cannot get shingles. (Some people with shingles claim that they have never had chickenpox. This simply means that their original bout of chickenpox was so mild that it was not diagnosed at the time ? or they have simply forgotten because it was such a long time ago.)
4 - How do people get shingles?
When you recover from a chickenpox infection, the virus retreats to a 'junction box' in the nerves beside the spine. It remains there in a dormant state for the rest of your life. Something 'triggers' the virus to reactivate (perhaps when you are run down or unwell, but no one really knows why) and it comes out as shingles.
5 - Is shingles infectious (catching)?
People do not catch shingles from each other. A person with shingles cannot give another person shingles, nor can you catch shingles from someone with chickenpox. In fact, it has been found that when people who have had chickenpox encounter the disease again, it increases their immunity and means they are less likely to develop shingles.
Chickenpox is infectious - people can give it to someone who has not already had it. Someone with shingles may give another person chickenpox if that person has never had chickenpox before, through direct contact with the shingles sores. This is because it is the same virus. Once people have had chickenpox, they do not usually get it again.