Shingles Prevention
Shingles can be prevented in advance by preventing the varicella zoster virus, which is better known by the ailment it causes: chicken pox. Varicella zoster spreads like wildfire, especially among the young children that are so susceptible to it. However, there is very little risk to varicella zoster. Only the worst of complications provide any true danger. Most find that varicella zoster will simply burn itself out over the course of a week or two, generally coming on very rapidly and diminishing from there. The afflicted is considered effectively healthy again when the virus is no longer contagious. However, it is from this stage that the virus may settle unaware to its host in the spine, to be forgotten for forty years or more.
Varicella zoster can be defended against. There are vaccinations available, however, the risk of infection is greater with this than most vaccines. Generally, vaccinations always carry some very small risk of infecting the patient with the disease it is meant to inoculate against. However, varicella zoster inoculations are, for lack of a better term, simply fickle. While it is still not the majority circumstance, there is a greater incidence of the varicella zoster infection of back lashing into a full-blown infection than there exists for the vast majority of inoculations.
As a consequence, varicella zoster vaccinations are never the standard, under almost any circumstances. Children are not inoculated against varicella zoster to defend against infections in school: those that would be vulnerable to it with a significant health risk related to varicella zoster infection cannot actually sustain the risks that the vaccine carries. It is simply assumed that children may or may not contract varicella zoster, that is, chicken pox, and that it will cause them some discomfort that isn't worth the risk of complications that could be brought on by a vaccine.
The one circumstance under which varicella zoster vaccinations are provided as a matter of course is in the health profession. Individuals working as doctors or nurses who have not been infected with varicella zoster may be inoculated to prevent their infection on the job, which becomes almost guaranteed at some point during their tenure.
Again, this is only the varicella zoster infection that can be vaccinated against. It is impossible to prevent shingles specifically, and only the root illness can be prevented. Further, the varicella zoster infection generally manifests very early in life, long before the afflicted could have ever considered vaccination for themselves, let alone for the purpose of shingles prevention. If you have already had chicken pox, it is too late to pursue vaccination. Even if you do pursue vaccination, this could simply result in a case of the chicken pox and, subsequently, the virus could then revive itself from your spinal cord.
Thus, the prevention of shingles is tenuous at best, as it can only be levied as a defense against shingles when the possibility of a shingles outbreak is nearly out of the question. Thus, preventative measures are not an effective means by which to deal with shingles.