Post Herpetic Neuralgia Signs
April 25, 2007 – 4:29 pm | posted in Dermatology, Infectious DiseasesPost herpetic neuralgia (PHN) is a common complication of shingles. Each year some one million adults in the US alone develop shingles and with increasing age, approximately twenty per cent go on to suffer post herpetic neuralgia and intractable pain. Shingles itself is a viral infection of the nerve roots causing pain and a band of rash that usually spreads on one side of your body.
The shingles infection can be divided into three phases namely:
– The pre-eruptive phase - early symptoms of burning, itching and generally feeling unwell.
– The acute eruptive phase - skin lesions appear and there may well be severe pain and
– The chronic phase - persistent pain lasting 30 days or more after the lesions have crusted.
It is this last phase which is post herpetic neuralgia (PHN) and it is during this last phase where the sufferer can have persistent or recurring pain for thirty days or more after the rash itself has crusted. PHN is a condition that can be more painful than shingles and in some cases intolerable. This is why it is so important to treat shingles itself in the early stages (within 3 days of developing the rash) to shorten the length of the illness and reduce both the severity of the symptoms and the risk of these complications. Many have found a natural healing product made from essential oils and taken at the outset of the condition to be helpful.
The pain associated with PHN is caused by damage to the nerves. The varicella zoster virus causes this damage to the nerves. Nerve fibers send messages from the skin to the brain but if the nerve fibers are damaged during an outbreak of shingles, they are not able to send messages in the normal manner. The body then perceives these mixed messages as pain. However, in most people who develop PHN, the pain will gradually resolve with time even though it may take months, or in the very worst cases, years.
The most important factor in PHN is the age of the person who contracts shingles.
At the age of 55, 25% of those with shingles will develop PHN. This rises to 50% at the age of 60 and 70% at the age of 70. Pain lasting more 1 year occurs in 48% of patients older than 70. Women are more susceptible and it is 4 times more common in white people.
The condition is not fatal but the pain can sometimes be so severe that people have to put their lives "on hold" for months and they often have to rely on family members or a professional caregiver to look after them for that period of time. When you have PHN, damaged nerve fibers send confused and exaggerated messages of pain from your skin to your brain and it is this that leaves the affected area of skin sensitive to even the slightest touch. Although some people must live with post herpetic neuralgia for the rest of their lives, most can expect the condition to disappear gradually on its own within 5 years.
Amoils offers all natural treatments for common conditions and ailments using essential oils. Visit our Post herpetic neuralgia page for more information.
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