Having had chickenpox means that the course of chickenpox is over this time, and you will not get chickenpox again. Because chickenpox provides lifelong immunity, the body’s immune system is able to keep itself free from infection when it encounters the varicella-zoster virus, which can cause chickenpox, again in the future. However, after getting chickenpox once, the associated virus does not disappear completely, but remains latent in one’s nerve root cells, and one will not get chickenpox again. The infection is not a generalized rash, but is confined to the area of skin innervated by the nerve cells, and is called herpes zoster. Herpes zoster differs from chickenpox in that one of its rashes is limited in extent, and the other is that it is primarily painful and does not usually have the itchiness of chickenpox.