What To Do About Shingles Nerve Pain

Even though a blistering rash is characteristic of the condition the pain can precede the rash often the earliest signs and symptoms are a tingling or burning sensation on the skin.

What to do about shingles nerve pain. Postherpetic neuralgia occurs if your nerve fibers are damaged during an outbreak of shingles. It s caused by nerve injury at the. Shingles typically develops along the path of one nerve on one side of the body. When the rash goes away the pain usually goes.

Roughly 30 to 60 of people over age 60 who get shingles go on to develop a chronic pain syndrome called post herpetic neuralgia. Shingles a viral infection of the nerve roots affects 1 million people in the u s each year. While a painful itchy blistering rash is the main characteristic of shingles this nerve pain may precede its appearance. This condition is known as postherpetic neuralgia and it occurs when damaged nerve fibers send confused and exaggerated messages of pain from your skin to your brain.

Learn about treatment options from a pain management specialist. The virus travels down nerve fibers to cause a painful skin rash. Quite frequently the earliest symptom of shingles is a burning or tingling sensation on the skin. Shingles itself comes from reactivation of a chickenpox virus varicella zoster.

For some people shingles pain continues long after the blisters have cleared. The most common complication of shingles is postherpetic neuropathy phn when this happens feelings of pain remain long after the blisters have cleared up. Damaged fibers can t send messages from your skin to your brain as they normally do. Instead the messages become confused and exaggerated causing chronic often excruciating pain that can last months or even years.