If you have a challenging life at all, as the years roll by you’re likely to meet the shingles nemesis at one point or another. ‘Shingles’, or Herpes Zoster, is opportunistic when certain energies are low, as is the case for most viruses. In the case of shingles, however, it follows a great stress of one sort or another.

If you catch it early enough, taking a good program of homeopathic Rhus Tox in the 30C range is a good bet to stop it. Usually, however, once it sets into its full blown stage most people just wait it out.

It is a pain like no other. Because it is a rash of sorts it has a kind of maddening, frustrating itch that is so deep that the inability of not being able to ameliorate the demon with a scratch leaves one beside oneself. Underlying all of that is a constant pain that makes you feel like you have just been whacked with a baseball bat in that same area. What hits us worse is that both the severity of onset and duration of the problem increase as we get older. Perhaps it is just the omnipotent being’s way of saying that as we get older we should learn to take life in stride.

While we treat this active stage with a good deal of success, what we are most often called on to do is to treat ongoing cases of Post-Herpetic Neuralgia. While enduring even a couple of months of the active stage would be enough to send most of us over the top and right into the looney bin, having the deep pain continue beyond this stage is more than any man or woman should bear.

Let's give you some insights on the why’s and how’s of the disease in an oriental perspective: Most of the time the impacted area tells the story. While stress, usually prolonged, exposes us to the disease, the clue to our weak points is exhibited by where the disease settles. For instance, if it settles on the left lower or upper rib cage we would suspect stomach or pancreas problems. If it settles on the right rib cage we would suspect the Liver or Gallbladder.

If it is in the centre of the low back it is the kidney or bladder, and further up on the chest might be the heart. Therefore, the disease has already led us to the organ and meridian that we have to treat. Because the problem centres on stress and is a wind itch of sorts, we work on calming that old bully the liver and freeing up the flow of blood.

When it is in its Post-Herpetic Neuralgia stage, however, there can be nerve damage, and depending on the health recovery of the patient, the active stage can come back many times. Barring the return of the active stage, the neuralgia can go on forever, or the nerves can come back in one or two years.

With such a large unknown in one’s life, and being left almost unable to cope with doing any other activity, people will seek out help. This is where the basic health of the patient and the duration of onset will determine the basic speed of recovery.

It is lovely to treat a person full of life who comes in determined to get rid of a problem that is just slowing them down. However, it is quite another to see someone for whom the neuralgia is just one of many grave problems.

We believe that it is not just something that has to be tolerated or waited out. In fact, if the basic health pattern is not significantly changed, it can be a problem that is never completely shaken. Bringing the energies that made the virus opportunistic back into balance should still be a priority whether one gets occasion of remission or not.