No, you body has spent the last X number of years (since you caught
chickenpox or were exposed to it - likely as a child) developing, refining
and maintaining its immune response to the virus. Its not a new infection
and also the immune system will get involved in the final clearing out of
the infection so its system of recognition and reaction will get re-primed
during this outbreak anyway.

Well its probably a good idea since the literature indicates that
aggressive treatment may help limit certain nasty follow-on effects like
post herpetic neuralgia. As you are probably aware in most people the
outbreak itself can be incredibly irritating to very painful and reducing
that in itself it likely a good idea. Also the antiviral can limit the
viral shedding going on and that in itself helps limit transmission
possiblities.

THe drug works by mimicking one of the letters of the virus' DNA code
(the G's in fact). They get included in the strand instead of the normal G
and that blocks the replication of the virus DNA which in turn means no
viable virus particles to go on. It avoids this happening in uninfected
cells and so it doesn;t affect host DNA replication because the first step
in the biochemistry requires the presence of a virus gene and so happens
specifically in virus infected cells.

TIm
--
When playing rugby, its not the winning that counts, but the taking apart
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Yes, most people are given one of the herpes antivirals when diagnosed with
shingles.  Someone else will have to tell you how it works, though.  :)

I don't believe that taking the medication will lesson your immunity.  I
don't have any proof of that, though.

No case of shingles HAS to be treated.  It will, eventually, go away.  But
the pain is pretty severe and the meds help.

ar