Postherpetic Neuralgia

Postherpetic neuralgia is a painful condition that can follow an episode of shingles. The term comes from the words “post,” meaning after, “herpetic,” referring to herpes zoster (shingles), and “neuralgia,” meaning nerve pain. Shingles is a recurrence of the varicella-zoster virus, the same virus that causes chickenpox. After a chickenpox infection, the varicella-zoster virus can remain dormant (asleep) in nerve cells. Years later, the virus may become active again. Researchers do not know exactly what...More