Shingles & Vaccinations
Article by Mark Jakobs
Preventing Shingles
Prevention is always better than cure. This is the quote we hear from health providers. It sounds like a cliché but it makes sense and, indeed, it is true. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of ways to prevent shingles, depending on what a person avoids and what they choose to do. In the medical field, health is wealth.
Health is what matters most. It is the main focus of the medical world. Health care providers are called as such because their purpose is to aid the health of a person. In other words, as much as a person can prevent a disease, he or she must. That is why prophylactics are used by the heath care providers in order to prevent certain diseases.
A preparation that was intended for a person’s body to produce immunity to a particular disease is called vaccine. It normally has an agent that mimics a disease-causing microorganism, usually made of a suspension of weakened or killed microorganisms or toxins.
Recognizing the Toxins
This agent helps or triggers the person’s immune system to recognize the agent as foreign then destroy it, and after which, recognize it. So the next time the immune system encounters the same microorganisms, it can easily be recognized and as well as be destroyed. Vaccines can be dead, inactivated organism, or purified products.
Types of Vaccines
There are several types of vaccines such as killed, attenuated, toxoid, sub-unit, conjugate, experimental, and valence.
The Killed Vaccine
a killed vaccine contains microorganisms that have been destroyed with heat or chemicals; like influenza vaccine, bubonic plague vaccine, hepatitis A vaccine, cholera vaccine, polio vaccine, and rabies vaccine.
The Attenuated Vaccine
Attenuated is when the vaccine contains live but less virulent pathogen like the vaccines for yellow fever, measles, rubella, mumps, typhoid, and tuberculosis.
The Toxoid Vaccine
Toxoid is when it is made of inactivated toxic compounds like tetanus and diphtheria.
The Sub-Unit Vaccine
Sub-unit is when it contains neither inactivated nor attenuated microorganisms, but rather protein sub-units. It introduces these sub-units to the immune system without introducing all of the viral particles, by which a fragment of protein can create an immune response in the body. Examples of sub-unit vaccines are those for hepatitis B virus, influenza virus, and human papillomavirus.
The Conjugate Vaccine
Conjugate is when a poor antigen is attached to a carrier protein from which the immunological attributes of the said carrier protein will be shared on the attached antigen. Examples of the conjugate vaccines are those for haemophilus influenza type B.
Experimental Vaccines
Experimental vaccines are innovative vaccines in development; like dendritic cell vaccines for brain tumors, DNA vaccination, and T-cell receptor peptide vaccines for valley fever, stomatitis & atopic dermatitis.
The Valence
Valence, also known as monovalent, univalent, or polyvalent vaccines, help in developing a much stronger immune response.
More on Shingles
Shingles, known as herpes zoster, is a viral disease that has a pneumonic characteristic of painful rashes with blisters. It is one of the diseases that have many kinds of vaccines. The shingles vaccine commonly used is Zostavax. It helps protect a person against the reactivation of the Varicella-Zoster virus, which is the virus that causes chickenpox and shingles. This kind of vaccine has a type of live attenuated vaccine, which is given via a subcutaneous injection usually in the upper arm. It comes with some common side effects of redness, pain, tenderness, and swelling at the injection site and the patient can also experience headaches.
A One-Time Dose
The vaccine is given as a one-time dose, even if the person has previous history of shingles or chickenpox. It is contraindicated if a person has a history of anaphylactic reaction to any sort of zoster vaccine, if the person has a weakened immune system, if the person is taking medications that can cause suppression of the immune system, if the person has active and untreated tuberculosis, and also to pregnant women or those who are trying to become pregnant.
The single standard dose of the shingles vaccine will protect the person from acquiring shingles for about four years, from which the antibodies produced by the vaccine will remain in the person’s body. However, the shingles vaccine’s effectiveness depends on the person’s natural strength and immune system. Hence, the vaccine will also help minimize and alleviate the symptoms of shingles.
A vaccine is, indeed, therapeutic, which helps any person to prevent the occurrence of certain diseases and/or lessen the symptoms, if they ever acquire those diseases. “Prevention is better than the cure” really makes sense.
About the Author
Mark has been writing articles for nearly 4 years. He also writes about diet & nutrition. Come visit his latest website for calendula tea information which gives people advice on where to find calendula tea
