Definition of Postherpetic Neuralgia

The Mayo Clinic defines postherpetic neuralgia as a moderately to severely painful condition of the skin caused by a viral infection of shingles, which is a result of the same virus that triggers chickenpox. Postherpetic neuralgia may be present during a person's infection, as well as after the infection has been cured. Actually, some people experience the pain associated with postherpetic neuralgia for years after they've suffered from shingles.

Shingles

• To truly understand the condition of postherpetic neuralgia, it is important to understand how shingles affects a person's body. Once you've been infected with the virus that causes chickenpox, it essentially remains dormant in your system. Some time later, you may experience the infection a second time, this time as shingles. When someone develops shingles, the virus basically travels through the nerves up into the skin where a rash and blisters begin to form.

Postherpetic Neuralgia

• Since the virus has traveled through the nerves and into the skin, these same nerve endings may become irritated and inflamed, causing a person to suffer fairly unbearable pain. This pain is called postherpetic neuralgia. It may come about at the very instant you develop shingles and last throughout the course of this particular medical condition, or it may persist for a rather long period of time (sometimes years) after the infection has cleared up.

Symptoms

• Everyone who suffers from postherpetic neuralgia due to shingles experiences a certain amount of pain, running from a dull throb to a sharp ache. Some people even face a sensation often described as a burn. While this pain is the most common of all symptoms, this condition can be accompanied by other offshoots of postherpetic neuralgia, including itchy skin, numbness, heightened sensitivity to touch, heightened sensitivity to temperatures and headaches.

Treatment

• Most treatments for postherpetic neuralgia involve some sort of pain management, either through medication or nerve stimulation. Depending on the type and intensity of your pain, a doctor may prescribe an antidepressant, anticonvulsant, corticosteroid or painkiller to relieve the pain and discomfort. If medicinal pain management isn't effective, your doctor may try some form of nerve stimulation to relieve your pain. This may be through electrodes adhered to the skin or implanted under the skin. This form of treatment entails sporadic electrical impulses either emitted into the affected area of the skin or directly into the spine.

Demographic

• While almost anyone who suffers from an infection of shingles has the potential of developing postherpetic neuralgia, it is most common is certain demographics. According to the Mayo Clinic, 50 percent of people age 60 and older develop postherpetic neuralgia after an infection of shingles.