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Shingles: Treating the Chronic Pain
Perhaps the most unrelenting of chronic pain is postherpetic neuralgia or PHN, the pain that continues after the rash from shingles has healed. Described by sufferers as a living nightmare, PHN can persist for months, years, or even decades.
Shingles, or acute herpes zoster, strikes nearly one million Americans every year. This chronic disease is caused by the same varicella-zoster virus that causes chicken pox in 95% of children. The virus reappears as shingles and affects the nervous system in one of seven adults who live to be 85 or over.
What factors are most likely to re-trigger the virus in seniors? What are common signs and symptoms of PHN? What are the latest methods for suppressing the virus? These questions and more are answered in an upcoming TV special which also reports some good news: A revolutionary new type of pain medication, the topical lidocaine patch, can effectively reduce PHN pain without major side effects.
Shingles: Treating the Chronic Pain. A 30-minute TV special created for FOX's The Health Network and co-hosted by Bradley Galer, M.D., Co-Director of the Pain Medicine and Palliative Care Program at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York.
This program is produced by Information Television Network and was made possible by an educational grant from Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc.
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