What Does Chest Pain Along With Breathing Difficulty Indicate?

My husband went to the hospital last Monday. He had a large abscess under his right arm which was drained by the ER doctor and he was given antibiotics to take for 10 days. He was also experiencing some f chest pain and felt some breathing difficulty. He had an electrocardiogram and chest xray of his lungs which were both determined to be negative and as ther doctor said, non life threatening. We mentioned a small rash that appeared in the middle of his back; to my eye, the rash seemed to grow a bit during the 4 hours we spent in emergency, although the attending nurse thought he saw no further growth. He is now hurting with what is obviously a good sized case of shingles. He s in a lot of pain and needs to know if there is anything he can do or take to ease the pain. It appears the shingles are still growing . Is it possible that the symptoms that took him to the hospital were pre-shingle symptoms.