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What Is Postherpetic Neuralgia?

Neuralgia, as the name suggests, is nerve pain that occurs when a nerve is irritated or inflamed. The pain spreads along neural pathways, may be fleeting or chronic, and can range from mild to outright unbearable.

A relatively common type of neuralgia is postherpetic neuralgia, which strikes after the type of herpes infection known as shingles. Typically, people with this form of neuralgia experience a continuous burning sensation, but pain may also be very severe and unrelenting. Any pain which persists for more than a month after resolution of the herpes zoster rash is called postherpetic neuralgia.

What Causes It?

The most likely source of any neuralgia is irritation or inflammation of a nerve or pressure on a nerve from bones or connective tissue. In postherpetic neuralgia, the nerve inflammation is caused by a recent viral infection from herpes zoster (shingles).