What is postherpetic neuralgia?
Shingles is a rash caused by the varicella-zoster virus latent in the ganglia, and patients feel strong pain, and some patients will still have persistent pain after the lesion heals for more than 1 monthThat is, postherpetic neuralgia.
Risk of morbidity & age
The risk of postneuralgia in patients with shingles is greatly correlated with age, and the greater the age, the greater the risk, and the incidence of this disease is about 9%~13%, while the incidence of patients over 60 years old can be as high as 20%~50%.
Specifically, it is manifested as spontaneous knife cut, needle, electric shock, cauterization, hyperalgesia or hyperalgesia, hypersensitivity and hypoesthesia and other discomforts, especially shingles on the head and face are more likely to leave sequelae, and patients often have severe pain and seriously affect their lives.
Manifestation symptoms
Source: Picture Worm Creative
Treatment of postherpetic neuralgia
Due to the lack of the body’s own repair ability after the virus destroys the corresponding nerves, or the self-repair function is disordered, the pain day after day makes the patient unable to sleep at night, the life and rest are disordered, and the person cannot concentrate during the day. Over time, resistance decreases, which may cause more diseases. The key points in treating postherpetic neuralgia are: to control pain as soon as possible, relieve accompanying sleep and emotional disorders, and improve quality of life.
The current treatment methods for postherpetic neuralgia mainly include:
Point
01 Gua Sha treatment
Gently scraping the relevant meridian acupuncture points (such as the bladder meridian and liver meridian) can quickly dredge the blocked qi and blood, take away the local dampness and heat evil, relieve severe pain, and promote the drying and scab of the blisters and shorten the course of the disease. Precise scraping of the herpes distribution area and the corresponding reflex area can also reduce the risk of posterior neuralgia, taking into account both “treating the symptoms” (relieving symptoms) and “treating the root cause” (conditioning the constitution).
Point
02 Oral drug treatment
Drug treatment is the basis of invasive interventional therapy, drug selection should be individualized, when a single drug treatment cannot obtain satisfactory pain relief, combined drugs should be considered, and when choosing drugs, attention should be paid to the selection of drugs with different mechanisms, drug efficacy added or synergistic and the side effects of drugs should not be added.
Point
03 Nerve block treatment
A local anesthetic is injected around the nerve to block nerve pain signaling and temporarily relieve the patient’s pain.
Gua Sha treatment needs attention
Gua Sha needs to be operated by a professional Chinese medicine practitioner to avoid blister damage, and the effect of traditional Chinese medicine conditioning and antiviral treatment is better; Special groups such as pregnant women and people with skin ulcers need to be cautious. Inheriting thousands of years of scraping techniques, it helps smooth meridians in a gentle and natural way, so that shingles patients suffer less pain and regain their health and vitality faster. In clinical practice, we also encounter many people who are troubled by shingles. Today’s case is one of them, let’s take a look at how gua sha regulates shingles.
Real case: Neuralgia after 3 months, scraping 1 time is effective(Picture suggestion: close-up of the patient’s neck, shoulders and back herpes scars, mosaic to protect privacy; With the actual picture of the gua sha operation, focus on the back bladder through scraping process, highlighting professional techniques) Patient’s situation: Female, 67 years old Complaint: Herpes scar pain on the right neck, shoulder, back, and right upper limb with itching for more than 3 months, severe night symptoms, affecting sleep, and obvious ant crawling sensation.Conditioning plan:
- Focus on scraping the hips, waist, lower limbs and back foot solar bladder meridians on both sides to achieve the effect of relaxing tendons and circulation, activating blood circulation and relieving pain.
- Palm grinding black sha detoxifies and assists in the discharge of residual evil toxins in the body.
Conditioning feedback: The next day, the patient reported that the pain and itching in the neck, shoulder, back and right upper limb were significantly reduced, and they could sleep quietly at night.