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.
Environmental groups yesterday filed an appeal with the Executive Yuan, seeking to revoke the environmental impact assessment (EIA) conditionally approved in February for the Hsieh-ho Power Plant’s planned fourth liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving station off the coast of Keelung. The appeal was filed jointly by the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group, the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association and the Keelung City Taiwan Head Cultural Association, which together held a news conference outside the Executive Yuan in Taipei. Explaining the reasons for the appeal, Wang Hsing-chih (王醒之) of the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group said that the EIA failed to address
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
RSS