Why does it still hurt after shingles healed

Shingles is a relatively common disease. Its most obvious symptom is that the patient feels severe neuralgia, which is an unbearable pain. Some patients will still experience pain after the disease is gradually cured. This is a relatively obvious sequelae of shingles. At this time, it is necessary to adopt certain methods to treat it in time, because this pain may last for a relatively long time.

Why does the pain still persist after the herpes zoster is cured?

After the clinical recovery of acute herpes zoster, persistent pain for more than one month is called postherpetic neuralgia, which is one of the intractable pain syndromes. Its duration can be as short as 1 to 2 years or even longer than 10 years. If there is no effective pain control method, the general history of the disease is as long as 3 to 5 years.

The pathogenesis of postherpetic neuralgia is still unclear. Its occurrence may be related to changes in the normal form of nerve impulse transmission, untimely treatment, low resistance or immunity of the patient, the patient's specific constitution, degeneration of damaged nerve cells, and chronic stimulation.

Diagnosis is based on:

1. The nature of the pain is mainly spontaneous knife-like or lightning-like pain or continuous burning pain.

2. One month after the clinical cure of acute herpes zoster, there is still persistent or paroxysmal severe pain in the affected area, and obvious pigmentation changes can be seen in the affected area.

3. There are obvious sensory and tactile abnormalities in the affected area.

4. Due to the fear of severe pain, patients suffer from a heavy psychological burden, become depressed, and even lose confidence in life and have suicidal tendencies.

The clinical treatment of postherpetic neuralgia is very complicated, including drug therapy, nerve block therapy, nerve damage therapy, radiofrequency therapy, psychotherapy, etc. At present, the clinical treatment with comprehensive treatment based on ozone and minimally invasive surgery has a relatively ideal effect.