Health and Medical Information by Dr. Ng Yi Chian

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July 10, 2008 8:20 AM, QQbaby said...

My dad is having painful rashes around his waist line. According to Chinese healer (shinsei), this is called "snake" and if it goes a full round on the waist, it can be fatal!

What is "snake" and is it serious?

July 11, 2008, Dr. Ng said...

"Snake" is a name given by chinese for a medical condition called "Herpes Zoster". This is because the pattern of the rashes distribution like a band or "snake".

Traditionally, chinese people believe that when the "snake" grow one complete circle around one's body, he will die. Of course, now this is proven not true.

Herpes zoster is a reacitvation of the so call chicken pox virus. Your dad had chicken pox ( Varicella ) infection sometime ago. At that time, the virus will spread all over his body and developed multiple small blisters ( chicken pox ). After sometime, his body developed antibodies to kill all these viruses and he recovered from chicken pox. Since then, he has this antibody is his blood and is immuned against chicken pox. Therefore, one usually will get infected by chicken pox once in his life time.

However, for some reason, some viruses escaped the attack from these antibodies and managed to hide somewhere in our body, usually is in the nerve cells. For many years, these viruses remained dormant in your dad body........ until now ..............they are back again.

For unknown reason, these viruses are active again. Unlike the first time, this round they cannot spread to the whole body because antibodies are everywhere. They just grow along the nerve cells where they hide.

The distribution of our nerve cells follows segment called dermatome. That means each segment of our skin supplied by a group of nerve cells. Each segment is name after the vertebra e.g. T3, L5 , S4. It also divided to left and right side. You can imagine this like a building with different level. If a terrorist hide in one level, he can only cause damage to one level. He cannot cross to other level or even the opposite side of the same level because of the security.

Therefore, the rashes on your dad body can only grow around one side of the body forming a "C" letter only. No question of becoming fatal if it forms one circle.