Joint Pain
The Varicella zoster virus remains in the nerve cells and lies dormant after the chickenpox heals. A person’s joint pain, weakness, and muscle pain might be due to the virus. If the person developed shingles and had joint pain, the condition is more likely due to it.
The rash from the shingles goes away on its own. However, the doctor will recommend treatment for the pain associated with the condition, which is dependent on the area of the shingles outbreak.
Joint pain is usually a symptom of arthritis, and according to research, a person is twice likely to develop shingles if they have rheumatoid arthritis. But the precise reason why it happens is still unclear. According to experts, it could be due to the dysfunction in a person’s immune system due to inflammatory arthritis. And since most people with rheumatoid arthritis take immune-suppressing medicine for the inflammatory condition, shingles could be the medicine’s side effect.
In a study in 2015, researchers confirmed that taking corticosteroids increased the risk of shingles. Further, they found that people with rheumatoid arthritis prescribed to take disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs, such as methotrexate, were not at risk.
