The shingles vaccine has become a hot topic. Is it necessary for everyone to get it?

"After HPV and Helicobacter pylori, whether it is necessary to get the shingles vaccine has become a new hot topic. What is shingles and is it necessary to get the vaccine? You are welcome to like, follow and forward this article to more people in need.

Shingles is an acute skin disease caused by the varicella-zoster virus, which we usually call "herpes zoster" or "herpes zoster". Why is it called herpes zoster? It is because it grows almost only on one side of the body and generally does not exceed the midline of the body.

I believe many people are familiar with it, because there are quite a few people suffering from this disease, especially the elderly with low immunity. The most typical symptoms are mild fatigue, low fever, burning sensation or neuralgia in the skin, and obvious pain sensitivity when touched. The affected area often first appears erythema, and soon there will be papules ranging in size from millet to soybean, which quickly turn into blisters. It is accompanied by pain like knife cutting, burning, electric shock, and whiplash. It is said that the pain is higher than childbirth.

Some people often confuse chickenpox and shingles, thinking they are the same disease, but they are not. Although both diseases are caused by the varicella-zoster virus, chickenpox is the initial infection, while shingles is the manifestation of the virus lurking and then recurring after the chickenpox is cured.

The cause of this disease is due to infection with the varicella-zoster virus, but it does not mean that symptoms will appear immediately after infection. It usually lurks in the dorsal root ganglia of the spinal cord or the sensory ganglia of the cranial nerves for a long time. As long as you are stimulated by some kind of stimulation (such as trauma, fatigue, malignant tumors or weakness after illness, etc.) that causes the body's resistance to decrease, it will immediately become energetic and make you miserable. Therefore, the fact that many people do not get sick does not mean that they are not infected, but that they have not yet shown symptoms. We just mentioned the relationship between chickenpox and shingles. If you have ever had chickenpox, it means that you have this virus in your body.

So, is it necessary to get this vaccine? According to the "Chinese Expert Consensus on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Postherpetic Neuralgia", in our country, about 99.5% of adults aged 50 and above have latent varicella-zoster virus in their bodies, and the annual incidence of herpes zoster is about 3-5‰. Vaccination can effectively reduce the risk of herpes zoster within 4 years, but this vaccine has just been launched on the market and is still a little expensive. However, our country is also speeding up the research of this vaccine, and I believe there will be certain price advantages in the future. As for whether to get vaccinated, it depends on personal needs.