Systemic antivirals such as acyclovir are used to try to reduce the rash duration, its spread and herpetic neuralgia.
Post-herpetic neuralgia occurs following healing of the rash and may take several weeks or months to emerge.
Examples include thalamic pain, stroke, traumatic or iatrogenic brain or spinal cord injuries, phantom limb or stump pain, post-herpetic neuralgia and various peripheral neuropathies.
Post-herpetic neuralgia: there is normally a clear history of herpes zoster infection with a typical rash.
Drugs used in the management of trigeminal neuralgia.
A particularly distressing feature of the disease is post-herpetic neuralgia.
Postherpetic neuralgia,14 painful diabetic neuropathy15 and, more recently, neuropathic cancer pain16 have all been successfully managed using gabapentin.
It is characterized by a continuous, chronic head or facial pain that does not follow dermatomal boundaries nor conform to any of the known patterns of headache or cranial neuralgia.
