Guangzhou Daily News (all media reporter Weng Shuxian, correspondent Han Wenqing) Many neighbors are familiar with herpes zoster, commonly known as “raw snake”. But in everyone’s impression, shingles seems to appear mostly on the back, which is the so-called “loincloth”. Experts remind that shingles can actually occur anywhere on the body. During the Spring Festival, the Department of Dermatology of the First Hospital of Guangzhou Medical College admitted a patient who suffered from severe headache and facial paralysis due to the outbreak of “ear shingles”.
On the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, Auntie Zhang (pseudonym) in her 50s came to the dermatology clinic of the hospital with half of her face covered.
“This is a very typical auricular herpes zoster. The virus invades the facial and auditory nerves. In addition to causing severe neuralgia, it also affects the facial muscles and causes symptoms of facial paralysis.” Diagnosed. When she asked, she learned that this year, Aunt Zhang had been too busy–she cleaned two houses a year ago, and was busy visiting relatives and friends during the holidays, and only slept four or five hours a day.
After working for more than a week, Aunt Zhang felt a headache, and clusters of small blisters appeared on her face starting from her ears. She thought it was eczema, so she rubbed some ointment, but she didn’t expect the pain to get worse and worse, and finally she couldn’t take it anymore and came to the hospital.
“Herpes zoster occurs in middle-aged and elderly people, immunocompromised or immunosuppressed people.” Huang Weining reminded that shingles can occur in any part of the body, and the most common sites are the intercostal nerve, Cervical, trigeminal, and lumbosacral innervation areas. It usually has prodromal symptoms. Before herpes appears, some people have systemic symptoms such as fatigue, low-grade fever, and headache. The skin may experience burning sensation or pain. These symptoms will last about 1 to 5 days.
“When these symptoms appear, patients often think that they are other common diseases, such as cervical spondylosis, angina pectoris, appendicitis, lumbar muscle strain, etc., and go to other departments to see a doctor, until the blisters appear before they are transferred to a dermatology department.” Huang Weining said , Early diagnosis, early treatment, and active prevention are particularly important. Some patients have delayed the standard treatment time. Even if the herpes has subsided, they still have neuralgia from time to time. Some lasted for more than half a year, which was very painful. Early diagnosis and timely and adequate administration of antiviral drugs can effectively alleviate postherpetic neuralgia.
Experts reminded that the temperature changes greatly at the turn of winter and spring, so you should pay attention to keep warm, do outdoor exercise properly, enhance resistance and prevent colds. Daily work and rest should be regular, stay up late, avoid excessive fatigue, eat a balanced diet, eat more soy products, fish, eggs, lean meat and other foods with high protein content and fresh fruits and vegetables, and supplement vitamins. People 50 years of age and older can get the shingles vaccine for prevention.