How to Get Shingles Pain Relief
| By David In Healthy Life |

If you are reading this article, then there's a fair chance you, or someone close to you, have had the varicella zoster virus (Chicken Pox). And if that is true, then sadly, you are a candidate for herpes zoster (Shingles). Perhaps you are already experiencing the symptoms and are searching for a treatment, or just pain relief from the dreaded disease.

The problem is, that once we've had Chicken Pox, the virus remains in our nervous system, where it can lay dormant for many years. Then, later in life, something yet unknown by the medics, triggers its release into the nerves and translates as "The Shingles".

For me, it all started one fine summer's day. It was a day that started like any other. But before night-fall, I was to experience unrelenting pain, unlike anything I had ever experienced in my life. Pain even greater than that experienced two years previously when I suffered a major heart attack.

The pain started in my left shoulder blade and seemed to come through to my upper chest. It was a burning, searing, stabbing pain. As soon as I mentioned pain through to my chest, the doctor rushed me off to hospital, because of my previous heart attack. An ECG proved negative, but they were unable to diagnose the cause of the pain. For two and a half days, I lay in a hospital bed in total agony, begging for a morphine shot. Being under staffed and in the absence of the Specialist, all they could give me was a muscle relaxant!

On the evening of the third day, the Specialist noticed a small rash on the upper chest and shoulder area where the pain was. He then recognized my symptoms as Shingles. After advising me that there was no cure for Shingles, he immediately ordered an injection of (I believe) aciclovir, followed by a seven day oral course of this drug. He assured me that, if started within 72 hours of the appearance of the characteristic rash, I would be unlikely to develop Post Herpetic Neuralgia (PHN).

How wrong he was!

Post Herpetic Neuralgia was in full bloom and was to continue as severe, but bearable pain, for the next six months. Even today, some five years later, I still have the pain of Post Herpetic Neuraligia.

The only thing that has provided some pain relief, was massage to the pain center and Analgesics.