Magnific's Inc. - Cell Phone Magnifying Lens Accessories - Your vision is our vision

Herpes Zoster (shingles) and the Eye

Herpes zoster, commonly known as shingles, is a fairly common viral disease that most often affects people in their middle age or older. The unsightly rash of shingles can occur anywhere on the body, but the most common sites are the skin over the rib cage and the forehead. The disease is almost always painful! When the eye becomes involved, which can happen at the same time as herpes zoster of the forehead region, or afterwards, it can also threaten your eyesight.

What Causes Herpes Zoster?

Herpes zoster comes from the same virus that causes chickenpox in childhood. It may be “caught” from someone, or it may lie dormant in the body and be reactivated many years later. Sometimes another disease in the body suppresses normal immunity and allows the virus to reactivate.

Course of the Disease

The fist symptom may be severe pain in the skin, followed in a few days by a rash and blisters in the affected area. The blisters soon dry up and crusts and scabs form, eventually falling off and leaving irregular pink scars. The rash almost always occurs on only one side of the body as a wide band following the path of a nerve.

When the forehead, eyelid, or cheek is involved, the infection may extend down to the tip of the nose on the affected side. It is then that the eyeball itself may become involved. Vision may become blurry and the eye can become red, sensitive to light and painful.

The involvement of the eye in a herpes zoster attack can long outlast the original problem. The scabs on the forehead may disappear in a few weeks leaving some pock marks, but the skin inflammation, pain, and eye involvement may last many more weeks or months.

Treatment

Several medications can be used to relieve the pain and inflammation of a herpes zoster infection, but most are not as effective as one would like. Oral anti-viral medications and steroids can sometimes help the common run its course faster, but they do not cure it.

If the eyelid is involved, you will need intensive treatment to prevent serious damage to the eye and possibly your vision. Eye drops that contain a steroid to treat inflammation, and antibiotics to prevent secondary infection to the cornea, may be prescribed, as well as eye drops to keep the pupil dilated (enlarged). You will be given pain medication if necessary. If eye involvement is severe, oral steroids may be prescribed (if you are not already taking them); these must be uses exactly as directed to help reduce serious effects.

If the ocular infection leads to development of a secondary glaucoma, drops or pills may be prescribed to lower the fluid pressure in the eye.

Prognosis

Left untreated, severe herpes zoster of the eye may result in eyelid scarring, scarred cornea, cataract, or chronic secondary glaucoma. Even with treatment, such complications may occur, but are less frequent or may be less severe.

An attack of herpes zoster anywhere in the body can result in chronic, long-term pain in the affected area. This condition is known as post-herpetic neuralgia and may require treatment for a prolonged, indefinite period.