Intensity of shingles ache sensation has a wide range from scarcely notable to sharp, exhausting, agonizing soreness that can be eased only for a short period of time by the very strong stupefacient; injections. Also postherpetic neuralgia is possible – condition in which the strong pain continues for a long period of time (several months or sometimes years) even after the rash is gone.
Shingles pain causes more problems
Very often shingles eruption is accompanied by weakness, queasiness, nausea, headaches, fever. The common symptom of this disease is a rash (varies from several separate blisters to group eruption that usually covers 2- 3 segments, in rare cases more than 4). On separate occasions, as a rule in patients with hematological problems, the rash is spread on the whole skin.
However, very often abnormal course of the disease is observed. First of all this concerns the main subjective symptom – soreness. It can appear simultaneously together with the rash, or later; nonetheless, there are cases, when the disease is absolutely painless.
Mostly pain syndrome develops several days before the eruption appears. In this time the shingles diagnosis is difficult to predict. It can be of smart, lancinating, pulling, dull or sharp character. The ache spreads throughout the hurt areas, but it is the strongest on the places, where afterwards the rash will appear.
More often than not, the soreness is continuing, rather than attack-like. Moves, touches of clothing only make the soreness sharper, warmth lessens it, and cold – makes it stronger. Very often the ache can conquer the opposite side of the body – segments symmetrical to those infected, without any eruption.
Pain syndrome, its expressiveness, duration and radiation correspond to the skin manifestation of the disease. Occasionally minimal slight rash goes along with lancinating string continuing soreness, or vice versa. Only in 1/3 of the patients the ache decreases gradually together with the regression of the skin rash and disappears completely with the last vesicles. In the rest of the ill people the syndrome remains for a rather long time after the full involution of the blisters. It’s worth mentioning, that throughout the last shingles cases more and more are detected as completely or almost completely painless.
According to the modern researches pain syndrome can be divided into three phases: sharp, subsharp and chronic. In the “sharp phase” the syndrome carries mixed character (both inflammation and neuropathic; chronic phase is typically neuropathic. Each of the above mentioned phases has its own specific ways of treatment, based on the nosotropic sore syndrome mechanisms and proved by the checked clinical researches.
Superficial perception disorder is registered in the hurt area, more rarely in 1 or 2 neighboring segments. Perception comes back after the involution of the herpetic rash only in the half of the patients. The second half of shingles infected people continues to endure it for the several following months. Some cases are characterized by itching, that appears together with the eruption, or with the development of ache syndrome, very rarely but still possible – in the period of the rash involution.
As a rule itching is constant and can get worse during the night time. Some patients describe is as unbearable, like the one you get after the sunburn. Occasionally the itching is so intolerable it leads to the nerve breakdowns. Usually it disappears together with blisters and ache, or can remain for several weeks afterwards.
Thus, for shingles treatment the main concern is ache, which is difficult to get rid of, even after all visible syndromes are gone.