Loading...Shingles on forehead is a specific blister-like rash, accompanied by itching, soreness, and sometimes weakness, an increase in body’s temperature. This form of the disease is most often met in the elderly: 0.4% of people suffer from it at the age of 20-30 years, after 50 years – 1.6% of people, and after 70 – 2.8% of people. Besides, the frequency of relapses increases with age.
Symptoms
Shingles on forehead is triggered by Varicella Zoster virus, however, its source is not the external environment, but the infectious agent preserved in nerve fibers. Most of the times the immune system does not allow it to replicate and cause symptoms of the disease, but weak immune system opens up all chances for the virus. Therefore, clinical picture with rashes on the forehead is often accompanied by general clinical symptoms and signs of other diseases:
- Weakness and chills;
- Increased body temperature;
- Conjunctivitis, if the weakening of immunity was caused by ARVI;
- Rhinitis and headache with sinusitis.
The rashes themselves develop quite typically for shingles, in three stages – itching and swelling with bubbles containing a transparent liquid, and later it becomes crusty. Most often, shingles on the forehead has benign nature, very rarely it can develop in hemorrhagic or gangrenous form.
Shingles on the forehead often indicates inflammatory processes in the sinuses, and sometimes it becomes a symptom of meningitis and brain tumors.
Diagnosis
Herpetic eruptions on the forehead are diagnosed by a number of specific clinical signs:
- Asymmetry of rashes;
- Typical development in the 3 stages, all of them can successfully coexist;
- Age of the patient;
- Presence of concomitant disease or immunodeficiency.
In doubtful cases, it is possible to confirm the disease in the laboratory using polymerase chain reaction method with antibodies to the chicken-pox virus.
In the majority of cases, shingles affects the forehead skin in people over the age of 50.
Treatment
The treatment involves a set of techniques aimed at suppressing the activity of the virus, getting rid of the basic disease and stimulating immunity:
- Assigning antiviral ointments or tablets;
- Group B vitamins;
- Immunomodulators;
- Antihistamines are used to relieve itching and soreness.
Complex therapy of shingles allows to get rid of unpleasant symptoms, and once the immune status is recovered, the relapses occur extremely rarely.