Post Herpetic Neuralgia

The virus that gave most of us chicken pox as children lives dormantly in our nerve cells until something triggers the virus to duplicate. This exponential duplcation causes an inflammatory reaction in the blood vessels and tissues around particular nerves in our body. This causes a vesicular rash that usually subsides in a week, there usually a 3 week pain free interval and then a new pain starts. The type of pain is called allodynia. This pain is one of the most horrible pains known it is a condition where normal things that should not cause excruciating pain cause excruciating pain. Wearing a shirt, the mere rubbing of cotton on your skin can cause severe pain. Wind on the skin causes a fire like sting and normal treatments do not touch this pain. If you have this condition it is very important that you see a pain management specialist as soon as possible.