Causes, symptoms, prevention, and treatment of painful infection

Hyderabad: Imagine you are 55. You have been taking care of your diabetes for years. You also go for morning walks regularly. You feel healthy. Then, one day, you experience a peculiar, burning sensation in your rib area. You think it is a muscle strain. Two days later, a rash of angry, red blisters appears. The pain becomes so severe that even a slight touch on the skin feels unbearable.

You go to your doctor. Your doctor tells you that you have Shingles, a disease caused by a virus that has been sleeping inside you since you were a child. But the worst part of the pain is not the rash. It is the knowledge that this pain could have been prevented. There are vaccines for Shingles, and yet in all your visits to the doctor for your diabetes or blood pressure, the subject of adult vaccination has never been raised. This absence of conversation in the doctor’s office is leaving millions of older adults exposed to unnecessary pain.

The chickenpox link

Shingles are caused by the Varicella-zoster virus, which is the same virus that causes chickenpox.

When an individual gets chickenpox as a kid, the virus doesn’t leave the body. Instead, it goes into a deep sleep, the dormant state, in your nerve cells. But as we get older, after 50, our immune system starts to weaken on its own. This, due to our own chronic ailments like diabetes or heart disease, gives the virus a chance to “wake up” and travel back down the nerve fibers to your skin.

Shingles Action Week

A major new study has just emerged, revealing just how big this gap in awareness has become. In the run-up to Shingles Action Week, which is observed from February 23 to March 1, 2026, a worldwide survey commissioned by GSK highlighted serious concerns about the health of older Indians.

As per the survey, the physical impact of this disease is staggering. The results show that “43% of Indian participants who have had shingles reported severe, day-disrupting pain,” severe enough to be debilitating, such that “over one in three reported that it stopped them from working or attending social events.”

The report states that “Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) and Cardiovascular disease (CVD) experienced the greatest disruption,” but these are the people who are least likely to be aware of the dangers. The survey clearly shows a disturbing gap: despite frequent visits to the hospital, “nearly half (48%) say they have never discussed shingles with a doctor.”

Treatment to prevention:

With the demographic change in India set to see a huge rise in the senior population, there is an urgent need to move from treatment to prevention, warn medical experts.

Dr. Shalini Menon, Executive Vice President – Medical Affairs, GSK India, says that conditions such as diabetes and hypertension “add an extra burden on an already weakening immune system of senior adults. An urgent and growing need for patients to have regular, informed conversations with their doctors.”