Quote:
Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins
If you don't have an active outbreak, you're not going to know sans blood test.
There are tons of bugs that people have that the immune system keeps in check.
If you have a cat, you're almost guaranteed to have toxoplasmosis. The vast majority of Americans have CMV.
If you had chickenpox when you're a kid, the virus exists in its latent stage in the dorsal root ganglia of your brain, and if you're unlucky, will reactivate and give you shingles later in life.
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It's actually nearly guaranteed that you'll have shingles later in life. I think it's somewhere around 75% of all people 80 and over will get shingles.
As well, because of the immunizations that kids now get against chicken pox, the virus isn't being circulated in the general population like it used to and your body's resistance to the virus starts to drop. That's why there are more and more people in their 20's, 30's and 40's who are now getting shingles where they didn't see it until people got into their 60's, 70's and 80's when their resistance to the virus was lowered because of a naturally weakening immune system.
However, once you get shingles, your immune system gets a boost on it's resistance to the virus and you'll likely never get it again.
I know.
I got chicken pox p.II this summer.