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Q
: A substitute teacher at my school, was in the blitering stage of Shingles.She was rubbing a topical lotion for pain directly on the Shingles. She offered to share the contaminated bottle with me; but did not tell me that she had been repeatedly rubbing the lotion on her Shingles and HANDLING the bottle. I have NEVER had Shingles, but after handling the same bottle, I developed Shingles. Did she infect me with the outside of the bottle. The outside of the bottle was smeared with the liquid from her blisters.
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Answer
: Hello Barbara. You can only get shingles (Herpes Zoster) if you have previously had chickenpox. After having chickenpox the virus lies dormant in the nerves, and shingles occurs when it is revitalised in one particular nerve to the skin, thus explaining the way it affects a clearly demarcated band of skin only. Usually the cause is a decrease in your body's natural resistance, which may come through other infections, stress, being generally run down, or occasionally, when the body's immune defences are affected by certain drugs or other immune deficiencies. It is not caught from contact with someone with shingles or with chickenpox.
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