Shingles Goes Epidemic: Chicken Pox Vax to Blame

Photo Credit: Gaia Health

'Shingles is rapidly becoming epidemic, and the indirect cause is the chicken pox vaccine. Since shingles is the reemergence of chicken pox, that does seem counterintuitive. Nonetheless, the facts do prove the connection.

Once they enter your body, chicken pox viruses never leave. It doesn’t matter whether the virus entered by natural infection or by injection of a live attenuated virus in a vaccine. The virus, called varicella, hides in the central nervous system along a nerve root, and any nerve root will do. Normally, that’s not a big problem—but the situation is changing.

Historically, a few people would develop shingles, generally during a period of stress or reduced immune system function. In those cases, the varicella virus moves outward along the nerve root to whatever area of the body is served by it. It causes a rash, which is quite painful and usually lasts around a month. Most people never have a second bout of shingles.'

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