Dealing With Shingles Pain

 

Are you one of the people who suffer from a discomforting rash and skin itching and soreness??  If you have suffered or are currently suffering from this type of pain, chances are you are experiencing the difficult symptoms of shingles.  Shingles pain can be a huge burden to deal with, and sometimes lasts for a lengthy period of time – but it can be treated, and it doesn’t always linger.  So let’s see what we can do about discomfort from shingles...

But first, let’s discover what shingles is, and how it develops in the body.  For starters, you are unlikely to contract this disease unless you suffered from chicken pox as a young person.  When a child gets chicken pox, he or she has a virus known as varicella zoster.  Once you recover from chicken pox, the virus actually remains in the body.  In many to most cases, the virus will remain dormant and harmless for the duration of a lifetime.  However, in lots of instances, the virus will actually reawaken, and will begin to travel into the spinal cord area; once there, it will travel the nervous system and flare nerve endings in certain places on the body.  This localized pain is what many who suffer from shingles pain experience.  The physical appearance of shingles resembles strips of blisters which most often occur on only one side of the body.  The blisters tend to be reddened and quite uncomfortable.  Other symptoms such as numbness take place, and the beginning of shingles can imitate other illnesses, since fever, fatigue, and other things take place early on during the course of the illness.

Getting shingles is far more common in older people than it is in those who are younger – so the elderly are typically the people most likely to get shingles and thus most likely to be affected by shingles pain.  Those who experience the painful effects of this illness only suffer these symptoms for 3-5 weeks in many cases.  However, there are those who end up retaining symptoms for a considerable period of time, developing a condition known as postherpetic neuralgia.  This is certainly one reason you want to deal with your pain and get your illness treated as quickly and thoroughly as possible.  This may not mean you will not develop this condition – but if you get treatment, you might at least have a fighting chance to avoid lengthy, excruciating pain.

Fortunately, there are some treatment options you may discuss with your physician in dealing with shingles pain.   Once your blisters have healed, you can apply ointments which contain Capsaicin on the area affected by shingles.  You might also decide to use remedies such as Zostrix, or lysine, which is an amino acid that may be able to suppress infections.  While some research has found that chicken pox vaccine to older people may help strengthen their immune systems, there is also a shingles vaccine that has been approved by the FDA – yet the effects on those with weak immune systems is still unknown, making it a risk.

If you are one of the many dealing with shingles pain, there are remedies that can relieve your discomfort and give you peace of mind.