Shingles can take any situation from bad to worse
Divorces, layoff’s, bankruptcies, traumatic injuries, world-wide pandemics or just about any kind of highly stressful situations are Shingle's favorite time to appear and make every kind of terrible situation even worse. Herpes Zoster just loves stress and the adrenal exhaustion, immune system fatigue, and breakdown of defenses that comes with it. These terrible times provide the perfect conditions for the dormant varicella virus from your childhood to come out from where it’s quietly hidden itself in the body and wreak havoc along the highly sensitive nerves of the skin. The end result is a particularly evil blistering rash that causes pain, burning, tingling, and intense itchiness along the pathway of the affected dermal nerve. While most rashes circumnavigate from thoracic vertebrae to the center of the chest on one side, I’ve seen shingles take different routes in my clinic, including the neck, face, lumbar and legs.
Causes and Risk Factors
As it’s estimated that around 90 percent of adults carry the dormant chicken pox virus, this issue can be quite common. According to the CDC one out of three adults will develop shingles at some point in their lives and the older you are, the higher your risk. Other shingles risk factors include, weak immune system, poor gut health, taking certain prescription drugs and having autoimmune diseases. While there is a vaccine you can take to prevent shingles, there are many steps you can take to strengthen your overall health to prevent your susceptibility.
Typical Lifetime Of A Shingles Nightmare
While the rash can take between 2 and 4 weeks to disappear, pain can continue for several weeks as the nerves recalibrate. Certain unlucky sufferers (especially those who don’t receive herbal care or Acupuncture)) can experience Postherpetic neuralgia which results in extreme skin sensitivity, tingling and burning that can in some cases continue for years.
Acupuncture is incredibly effective at preventing and shortening the duration of shingles
Over the years I’ve treated dozen of shingles cases and have found this medicine to be incredibly affective at dramatically reducing symptoms and duration while also preventing lingering neuralgia. In China, Acupuncture and Chinese Herbs have been the first choice for shingles treatment for thousands of years with many finding relief without the need of western antiviral medications. I use a combination of specific Acupuncture points, Moxa (heat therapy), and antiviral and toxic heat clearing herbs to eradicate the symptoms and the virus. Most patients experience relief after the initial treatment or two with resolution after a few weeks of bi weekly treatments. For those with extreme and stubborn symptoms, i’ve found local Traumeel injections to be incredibly effective at stopping pain and inflammation.
5 Steps you can take immediately to resolve your shingles quickly
visit your doctor or Acupuncturist and get on a western anti viral like acyclovir or valacyclovir, or Chinese Antiviral herbs or both.
Take 1,000 mg’s Vitamin C 3 times daily and 50mg’s of zinc daily.
Get a B12 shot, B12 helps promote faster recovery and pain reduction, I offer these in the clinic.
Ditch the sugar, fruit juice, caffeine, fried foods and carbonated beverages.
Increase your intake of green leafy veggies, vitamin c and B rich foods like orange and yellow fruits, eggs and fish and drink tons of water.