Shingles, a condition common among elderly people, is becoming more common among young people, Asia University Hospital said, with doctors attributing the trend to irregular sleep schedules and stress.
The hospital treated a 21-year-old female university student surnamed Wu (吳), who complained of rashes across her face, chest, and neck, Department of Infectious Diseases attending physician Chang Wei-shuo (張為碩) said.
Wu began following a routine of sleeping late, as her club was practicing for a year-end performance, Chang said.
Photo: Chen Chien-chih, Taipei Times
After several days, she began to experience pain as if being burned or shocked on her left cheek, her chest and the left side of her neck, with a rash developing in those areas, Chang said, adding that she complained that painkillers had no effect.
Chang diagnosed Wu with shingles and after two weeks of treatment, the symptoms eased, he said.
Shingles is the result of infection by the varicella zoster virus and is common among those who had chickenpox as a child, Chang said.
The virus can lie dormant in ganglions — fluid-filled cysts associated with joints — if it was not entirely destroyed by the immune system’s response to chickenpox and can re-emerge when defenses are lower because of tiredness or illness, Chang said.
Shingles is more common among elderly people because of immune-system regression linked to aging or because of chronic conditions, Chang said.
However, diagnoses of shingles among young people have increased, perhaps attributable to a lack of regular schedules and late nights because of study or playing games, he said.
Blisters that form might carry the virus and can spread through contact or cause neuralgia — intense pain along the course of a nerve, Chang said.
Most rashes disappear within two to three weeks, but neuralgia varies from patient to patient, Chang said, adding that some people take as long as three months to fully recover.
The government on Dec. 1 lowered the threshold for National Health Insurance payouts for orally ingested medication, Chang said, adding that people should seek treatment at a clinic or hospital if they feel itching or pain on their body or one side of the face.
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
COUNTERMEASURE: Taiwan was to implement controls for 47 tech products bound for South Africa after the latter downgraded and renamed Taipei’s ‘de facto’ offices The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still reviewing a new agreement proposed by the South African government last month to regulate the status of reciprocal representative offices, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. Asked about the latest developments in a year-long controversy over Taiwan’s de facto representative office in South Africa, Lin during a legislative session said that the ministry was consulting with legal experts on the proposed new agreement. While the new proposal offers Taiwan greater flexibility, the ministry does not find it acceptable, Lin said without elaborating. The ministry is still open to resuming retaliatory measures against South
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS