The most common shingles rash usually follows the nerve paths on one side of the body. Most often it is found on the abdomen, back, neck, face or scalp and generally doesn’t go all the way around the body. The shingles disease is most often found in people over 50, however it can affect children also. It doesn’t matter if you are male or female as both sexes are equally affected by shingles.

One of the most frustrating parts of the shingles disease is that once it occurs, your chances of reoccurance are extremely high. Often the subsequent times a shingles flareup occurs it is found on or around the original spot from the first attack.

If you have shingles disease of the face, it will usually affect the nose and eyes. If part of the eye is affected, especially the cornea, the condition is known as zoster keratitis. The zoster keratitis shingles disease is extremely painful and if not treated promptly can affect the cornea with scar tissue that can lead to blindness. If you have any shingles symptoms that are affecting your face or head, you should seek the advice of your physician immediately. If you have a shingles attack and your nose or face is tingling, you could have deep facial involvement.

One of the longer lasting symptoms of the shingles disease is continued pain where the rash had been. When the nerve is affected as it is with shingles, the pain can last well after any flareup. If you have shingles on your face, you will also have prolonged shingles pain because when the trigeminal nerve, which supplies the face is affected with shingles, there are so many nerves in your face that it can linger for months.

Some people have reported having shingles disease pain without any signs of a rash. This is not uncommon, but is rather rare. When this happens, the condition known as zoster sine herpete, there can be severe pain in the chest or back that is so severe that people can mistake it for a heart attack or back injury. Never discount any signs of chest pain and attribute it to just a shingles disease flareup.

The rash blisters from the shingles disease can be contagious until they scab over. Until that time you need to use caution around children or anyone that has never had the chicken pox virus. The shingles disease can be painful and it can also be treated.