Generally, shingles is easily diagnosed by its characteristic discomfort/pain and its distinctive rash. To confirm that you have shingles, your doctor may scrape some skin from a blister or collect some of its fluid. These samples can then be sent to a laboratory for testing. The tests can detect the presence of the varicella-zoster virus.

These tests include:

  • Microscopic examination
  • Viral culture
  • Immunofluorescence
  • Polymerase chain reaction techniques

It may take as long as three weeks or several weeks to obtain the results of some of these tests.