The itchy bumps of your childhood chicken-pox outbreak can rear their ugly heads later in life via a shingles outbreak. Shingles, while not dangerous, can be very painful. Vaccines can help reduce your risk, and early treatment can shorten an infection and prevent complications. There's no direct connection between yoga and shingles, but yoga can provide some much-needed stress relief during a shingles outbreak if certain precautions are taken.
Definition
Shingles is a viral infection caused by varicella-zoster, the virus that also causes chicken pox. If you had chicken pox as a child, the virus remains dormant in your body and can reactivate later in life, manifesting itself as a shingles rash. Shingles usually appears as a band of blisters from the middle of the back around to the breastbone on one side of the body.
Symptoms and Complications
A shingles outbreak is sometimes preceded by pain, burning, numbness or tingling a few days before the rash appears. Other symptoms include itching, fever and chills, achiness, headache, fatigue and fluid-filled blisters. Shingles is not life-threatening, but it can lead to complications like lingering pain, vision loss, neurological problems and other skin infections.
Yoga for Stress Relief
According to the National Institutes of Health, stress can aggravate rashes. Doing yoga can help relieve stress, and while it won't treat or prevent rashes, it could prevent them from getting worse. While many people do yoga for fitness alone, it also has a calming effect due to the breathing exercises and meditation involved and the quiet environment in which it's practiced. Meditation and tai chi can also help relieve stress.
Other Treatments
Shingles outbreaks usually go away on their own, according to MayoClinic.com. However, conventional treatment can ease your pain, speed up healing and reduce the risk of complications. Antiviral drugs for shingles include acyclovir, valacyclovir and famciclovir. To treat your pain, your doctor may prescribe a narcotic such as oxycodone or an anticonvulsant such as gabapentin. Lidocaine, a numbing agent, may be prescribed as a gel, cream, skin patch or spray.
Warning
If you practice yoga outside your home, consider bringing your own mat and any other needed equipment. Shared equipment isn't always properly cleaned and can spread infections or irritate a rash you already have. While recovering from a shingles outbreak, you may need to avoid exercise that causes you to overheat or break a sweat, both of which can irritate the outbreak site. Rather than "power yoga," which is more strenuous, or bikram or "hot yoga," which is purposely performed in an overheated environment, you can try a "gentle yoga" class.
