Postherpetic Neuralgia

Excerpts from the entry on Postherpetic Neuralgia in Relieving Pain Naturally by Dr. Sylvia Goldfarb and Roberta W. Waddell. For full entries on all 37 conditions and 27 treatments, order the book.

Shingles, also known as herpes zoster, affects about one million people in the United States every year. It is an acute viral infection characterized by an inflammation of nerves, usually along just one side of the body, and is usually accompanied by a severe neuralgia (nerve pain). Postherpetic neuralgia, or PHN, is severe pain located in the area where the shingles was present. It is the most common chronic complication of shingles and appears after the shingles rash has gone. Those who have PHN say it is a shooting, stabbing pain, or it feels like their skin is on fire, and some say it is even more painful than shingles. Twenty percent, or one out of every five people with shingles, develops PHN, and the older you are, the more likely you are to get it. If you are over age seventy, you have a 75 percent chance of developing PHN if you have had shingles.

Also in this entry:

• Symptoms
• Cause
• Diagnosing the Problem
• Conventional Treatments
• Problems with Some Conventional Treatments
• Self-Help Alternative Treatments
• Assisted Alternative Treatments

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