There is this concept called the wheel of pain. It has its stages such as the pain caused by surgery, the pain a mother bears during the natural (not the caesarean section variety ) child birth, and so on. The pain caused by the anti-immune disease, rather a kind of skin disease, called shingles is supposedly more than the pain caused by the labour pain. No wonder, in Marathi, this dis-ease truly, is known as "नागिण", the she-cobra, whose bite is supposed to be the most vicious.
Actually, it is the chicken pox causing virus, herpes zorastrus, which is the culprit. A dis-ease of the elderly, shingles is caused by the virus dormant since childhood becoming suddenly activated. Since the immune system gets weakened in the elderly, the virus attacks them most viciously.
Though it can affect any part of the body, the worst case being the eyes, even the tongue, mostly, however, the blisters surround the waist, and there is a belief that if the mouth and the tale of this she-serpent meet, the victim, the patient, dies.
Such superstitions apart, shingles is a form of the chicken pox. For about a week, the blisters and the itching scales can cause havoc in the patient's life. To be on the safer side, it is better to be vaccinated. There are strong antibiotics available as well which can help the symptoms become bearable to the patient. Care and caution, in brief, are the real options.
Pratima@The pain is so acute that the authorities have dedicated a week to create awareness regarding the shingles.
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