Health Matters: Shingles vaccine

The past few years have brought with it a whole new focus on vaccines, but there’s one newer vaccine you may not be familiar with.

University of Alabama College of Community Health Sciences Department of Family, Internal and Rural Medicine Chair Dr. Jane Weida said the shingles vaccine is imperative for anyone older than 40 who had chicken pox as a child.

“We had chicken pox when we were little,” Weida said. “It was one of those childhood illnesses that we got along with measles and mumps.”

The chicken pox virus stays dormant near your spinal cord and at some point decades later it can come out and cause shingles.

Watch the entire interview below.

For all your primary health care needs, visit University Medical Center, with locations in Tuscaloosa, Northport, Demopolis, Fayette, Carrollton and Livingston.