prescription - a drug that is available only with written instructions from a doctor or dentist to a pharmacist; he told the doctor that he had been taking his prescription regularly. ethical drug, prescription drug, prescription medicine.
Definition. Shingles is a viral infection that causes a painful rash. Although shingles can occur anywhere on your body, it most often appears as a single stripe of blisters that wraps around either the left or the right side of your torso. Shingles is caused by the varicella-zoster virus â the same virus that causes chickenpox. After you've had chickenpox, the virus lies inactive in nerve tissue near your spinal cord and brain. Years later, the virus may reactivate as shingles. While it isn't a life-threatening condition, shingles can be very painful.
Shingles usually begins as a rash on one side of the face or body. The rash starts as blisters that scab after three to five days. The rash usually clears within two to four weeks. Before the rash develops, there is often pain, itching, or tingling in the area where the rash will develop.