Herpes zoster or Shingles, is caused by the reactivation of the varicella-zoster virus (VZV), the same virus that causes varicella (chickenpox).
Primary infection with VZV causes varicella. Once the illness resolves, the virus remains latent in the dorsal root ganglia, spinal cord.
VZV can reactive later in a person’s life and cause a painful, maculopapular rash called herpes zoster.
Symptoms
Patients with herpes zoster most commonly have a rash in one or two adjacent dermatomes (localized zoster). The rash most commonly appears on the trunk along a thoracic dermatome. The rash does not usually cross the body’s midline. Less commonly, the rash can be more widespread and affect three or more dermatomes. This condition is called disseminated zoster. This generally occurs only in people with compromised or suppressed immune systems.
Disseminated zoster can be difficult to distinguish from varicella.
The rash is usually painful, itchy, or tingly. These symptoms may precede rash onset by several days. Some patients may also have headache, photophobia (sensitivity to bright light), and malaise in the prodromal phase.
The rash develops into clusters of vesicles. New vesicles continue to form over three to five days and progressively dry and crust over. They usually heal in two to four weeks. There may be permanent pigmentation changes and scarring on the skin.
Herpesviridae is a large family of DNA viruses that cause diseases in animals, including humans. The members of this family are also known as herpes viruses. The family name is derived from the Greek word herpein (“to creep”), referring to the latent, recurring infections typical of this group of viruses. Herpesviridae can cause latent or lytic infections. Nine herpesvirus types are known to infect humans. They includes:
- Three—herpes simplex virus type 1, herpes simplex virus type 2, and varicella-zoster virus (herpesvirus type 3, which causes chickenpox and shingles)—cause infections that produce blisters on the skin or mucus membranes.
- Epstein-Barr virus (herpesvirus type 4) causes infectious mononucleosis and may be involved in certain cancers (such as nasopharyngeal cancer, Burkitt lymphoma, and Hodgkin lymphoma).
- Cytomegalovirus (herpesvirus type 5) is a cause of serious infections in newborns and in people with a weakened immune system. It can also cause symptoms similar to infectious mononucleosis in people with a healthy immune system.
- Human herpesviruses 6 and 7 cause a childhood infection called roseola infantum.
- Human herpesvirus 8 causes certain cancers (Kaposi sarcoma and some types of lymphoma), in people with a weakened immune system such as people with AIDS.
Transmission of Herpes zoster or Shingles
Active herpes zoster or shingles lesions are infectious, through direct contact with vesicular fluid or even if they dry and crust over, or by touching objects such as a toilet seat or hot tub.
Allopathic treatment for Herpes Zoster or Shingles
There is no cure for herpes zoster or shingles in allopathic medicines but there are treatments for managing the symptoms.
Antiviral medications
These drugs may ease the discomfort and make the symptoms stop sooner, particularly if you start them within 72 hours of the first sign of shingles. They may also help prevent the pain that can happen months and years later, called postherpetic neuralgia. These medications include:
- Acyclovir.
- Famciclovir.
- Valacyclovir.
Over-the-counter pain killers
These drugs include the following and may be effective in relieving pain:
- Acetaminophen.
- Diclofenac.
- Ibuprofen.
Other medications
Antibacterial drugs may be prescribed if patient develop a bacterial infection due to the shingles rash.
Anti-inflammatory drugs like prednisone may be prescribed if shingles affects patient’s eyes or other parts of the face and sexual organs.
Homeopathic Treatment for Herpes Zoster or Shingles
In Homeopathic medicines there are many best and proven medicines for many viral infections, here are very few of them for herpes zoster or shingles.
The symptoms listed against each medicine may not be directly related to this disease because in homeopathy general symptoms and constitutional indications are taken into account for selecting a remedy.
None of these medicines should be taken without professional advice.
said Dr. Qaisar Ahmed. MD, DHMS, Isl. Jurisprudence.
Petroleum
Petroleum acts on sweat and oil glands; symptoms worse during the winter season.
Burning pain, itching, redness, excoriation, and oozing, or itching pimples and tatters, on scrotum and between scrotum and thigh. Diminished sexual desire, frequent nocturnal discharges. Discharge of prostatic fluid (Prostatitis), weakness and nervous irritability after coition. Reddish eruption on glans, with itching. Herpes zoster or shingles.
In female patients, Catamenia too early, with a menstrual flux which excites itching. Leucorrhea like egg white, Leucorrhea with lascivious dreams.
During pregnancy diarrheas and vomiting. Itching and furfur on the mammie; the nipples itch and have a mealy coating.
Nitric acid
Skin dryness, Itching nettle-rash, especially in open air. Blackness of pores, brown spacelabs, reddish brown spots and deep-colored aphelia on skin. Copper or violet-colored spots.
Itching titters, pimples, or exanthema in general; stinging exanthema, corns on feet with pain. Herpes zoster or shingles.
Large furunculi. Mercurial ulcers. Carious ulcers with burning pains (especially when they are touched) and bleed easily.
Condyloma moist, like cauliflower, hard, rhagade, or in thin pedicles. Tightness of skin. Swelling of glands, warts, wens.
Male Sexual Organs:
Violent itching in genital organs, falling off of hair from parts, excoriation between scrotum and thighs.
Red spots covered with scabs on prepuce. Small, itching vesicles on prepuce, bursting soon and forming a scurf. Secretion behind glans, as in gonorrhoeic Bolani. Swelling, inflammation of prepuce, and phimosis. Para phimosis. Ulcers, like Cancers (after Mercury; especially with exuberant granulations), on prepuce and glans (with pricking, stinging pains).
Deep, fistulous, irregular, ragged ulcers on the glans, with elevated, lead-colored, extremely sensitive edges. Syphilis; secondary syphilis. Excrescences, like sycosis, on prepuce and glans, with smarting pain and bleeding when touched, with oozing of a fetid and sweetish pus. Red, scurfy spots on the corona glandes. Herpes zoster or shingles.
Relaxation of testes. Inflammatory swelling of testes, with painful drawing of the spermatic cord, as far as side of abdomen.
Absence of sexual desire and of erections. Great lasciviousness, with copious discharge of prostatic fluid. Painful, and almost spasmodic, nocturnal erections. Frequent nocturnal emissions.
Female Sexual Organs:
Itching, burning pain, and sensation of dryness in vulva, great failing off genital hairs. Stitches up vagina, or from without inward, when walking in open air. Violent stitches in vagina. Excoriations in vulva between thighs, Ulcer, with burning itching in vagina. Excrescences on vaginal portion of uterus as large as lentils; great voluptuousness of mucous membrane in genitals after coitus. Uterine hemorrhages from overexertion of body. Metrorrhagia, a principal remedy. Coffee-ground, offensive discharge from uterus at climaxes, or after labor.
Hard nodosities on breast. Atrophy of breasts, chapping of the skin, or cracks may extend deeply into the tissues, brown spacelabs, titters, ulcers suppurating, with copious pus. Herpes zoster or shingles. Dry and itching eruptions, like scabies, brown, or vinous, or else reddish, and herpetic spots on skin. Annular desquamation (annular herpes). Moist, scabious herpes, with itching and burning sensation.
Lycopodium Clavatum
Ulcerates. Abscesses beneath skin. Hives; worse, warmth. Violent itching; fissured eruptions. Acne. Herpes zoster or shingles. Chronic eczema associated with urinary, gastric and hepatic disorders, bleeds easily. Skin becomes thick and indurated. Varicose veins, naevi, erectile tumors. Brown spots, freckles worse on left side of face and nose. Dry, shrunken, especially palms; hair becomes prematurely gray. Dropsies. Offensive secretions; viscid and offensive perspiration, especially of feet and axilla. Psoriasis.
Sepia
Homeopathic medicines for genital herpes have burning itching, humid or scurfy herpes preputial; choppy herpes, with a circular desquamation of skin. Herpes zoster or shingles. Eruptions on glans and labia; indolent Cancers; itching and dry eruptions on genitals, condyloma; chancres on glans and prepuce.
Hard nodosities on breast. Atrophy of breasts, chapping of the skin, or cracks may extend deeply into the tissues, brown spacelabs, titters, ulcers suppurating, with copious pus.
Dry and itching eruptions, like scabies, brown, or vinous, or else reddish, and herpetic spots on skin. 
Annular desquamation (annular herpes). Moist, scabious herpes, with itching and burning sensation.
Sarsaparilla
Herpes and offensive sweat about genitals; the skin lies in folds; eruptions are prone to appear in spring, their base inflamed, the crusts detach readily out of doors and the adjoining skin becomes chapped.
Emaciated, shriveled, lies in folds, dry, flabby. Herpetic eruptions; ulcers. Rash from exposure to open air; dry, itching; comes on in spring; becomes crusty. Rhagades; skin cracked on hands and feet. Skin hard, indurated. Herpes zoster or shingles. Intolerable stench on genitals. Herpetic eruption on genitals. Itching on scrotum and perineum. Nipples small, withered, retracted. Before menstruation, itching and humid eruption of forehead. Menses late and scanty. Moist eruption in right groin before menses.
Abrotanum
Eruptions come out on face; are suppressed, and the skin becomes purplish. Skin flabby and loose. Furuncles. Falling out of hair. Itching chilblains. Herpes zoster or shingles.
Natrum muriaticum
Greasy, oily, especially on hairy parts. Dry eruptions, especially on margin of hairy scalp and bends of joints. Fever blisters. Urticaria; itch and burn. Crusty eruptions in bends of limbs, margin of scalp, behind ears. Warts on palms of hands. Eczema; raw, red, and inflamed; worse, eating salt, at seashore. Affects hair follicles. Alopecia. Hives, itching after exertion. Greasy skin.
Male Sexual Organs:
Itching, titters, and excoriation between scrotum and thighs. Itching and stinging on glans and scrotum., secretion behind glans, like gonorrhoeic Bolani. Phimosis.
Excessive excitement of genital organs, and of the amative feelings; or dullness of sexual desire. Want of energy during coition. Impotence. Pollutions after coition. Strong fetid odor from genital organs. Hydrocele. Loss of hair from pubes.
Female Sexual Organs:
Prolapses uteri with aching in loins, itching in genital organs, Repugnance to coition – Coition are painful from dryness of vagina; burning smarting during; in anemic women with dry mouth and dry skin.
Leucorrhea – Acrid (greenish) increased discharge when walking. Abundant discharge of transparent, whitish, and thick mucus from vagina.
Vulvitis with falling off of hair. Itching of external parts with falling off of hair. Pimples on mons veneris.
Child refuses breast; nursing sore mouth. Lancinating pains in breasts. Stitches beneath nipples (Breasts sensitive to slightest touch).
Causticum
Herpes zoster or shingles. Soreness in folds of skin, back of ears, between thighs. Warts large, jagged, bleeding easily, on tips of fingers and nose. Old burns that do not get well, and ill effects from burns. Pains of burns. Cicatrices freshen up; old injuries reopen. Skin prone to intertrigo during dentition.
Graphitis
Obstinate dryness of the skin, absence of perspiration. Red spots on the skin, like fleabites. Erysipelatous inflammations, vesicular erysipelas, like zona, on the abdomen and on the back. Itching of the varices on the lower limbs. Itching-stinging on the surface of a mole.
Herpes zoster or shingles. Eruptions oozing out a thick honey-like fluid. Titters are humid, scabby eruptions, sometimes with secretion of corrosive serum, or with itching in the evening, and at night. Eruption of pimples and nodules (principally under hair and on covered parts) which itch very much. Swelling and induration of the glands.
Encysted tumors, Corrosive nodules. Excoriation of the skin (in the bends of the limbs, groins, neck, behind the ears), especially in children, Proud flesh, and fetid pus, in ulcers, with tearing pains, burning, and shooting. Scrofulous and syphilitic ulcers. Burning pain in an old cicatrix. Deformity and thickness of the nails.
Male Sexual Organs:
Tension and cramp-like pains in the genital parts, with troublesome voluptuous ideas. Eruption of pimples on the prepuce, and on the penis. Dropsical swelling of the prepuce and the scrotum.
Female Sexual Organs:
Great aversion to coitus. Vesicles and pimples on the vulva, Excoriation on the vulva and between the thighs. Soreness of the vagina. 
Cutting pains on the appearance of the catamenia and during the catamenia, flow of blood from the anus, pains in the limbs, ulcers become worse, swelling of the cheeks or of the feet, catarrh, with hoarseness and coryza, toothache, Painful sensibility and excoriation of the breasts, with eruption of running phlyctenule. Obstruction and induration of the mammary glands. Hard cicatrices remaining after mammary abscess.
Hepar sulph
Abscesses: suppurating glands are very sensitive. Papules prone to suppurate and extend.
Ulcers/acne in youth. Suppurate with prickly pain, easily bleed. Herpes zoster or shingles. Unhealthy skin: every little injury suppurates. Chapped skin, with deep cracks. Ulcers, with bloody suppuration, smelling like old cheese and are very sensitive to contact, burning, stinging, easily bleeding.
Sweats day and night without relief. “Cold sores” very sensitive, Sticking or pricking in afflicted parts. Putrid ulcers, surrounded by little pimples. Great sensitiveness to slightest touch. Chronic and recurving urticaria. Smallpox. Herpes Cincinnatus. Herpes zoster or shingles. Constant
offensive exhalation from the body.
Male:
Herpes, sensitive, bleed easily. Ulcers externally on prepuce similar to chancre. Excitement and emission without amorous fancies. Itching of glans, frenum, and scrotum. Suppurating inguinal glands. Figworts with offensive odor. Humid soreness on genitals and between scrotum and thigh. Obstinate gonorrhea.
Female:
Discharge of blood from uterus. Itching of pudenda and nipples, worse during menses. Menses late and scanty. Abscesses of labia with great sensitiveness. Extremely offensive leucorrhea. Smells like old cheese. Profuse perspiration at the climacteric.
Merc sol
Vesicular and pustular eruptions. Ulcers, irregular in shape, edges undefined. Pimples around the main eruption. Itching, worse from warmth of bed. Crusta lactea; yellowish-brown crusts, considerable suppuration. Herpes zoster or shingles. Glands swell every time patient takes cold. Buboes. Orchitis
Male:
Vesicles and ulcers; soft chancre. Cold genitals. Prepuce irritated, itches. Nocturnal emissions, stained with blood.
Female:
Menses profuse, with abdominal pains. Leucorrhea excoriating, greenish and bloody; sensation of rawness in parts. Stinging pain in ovaries. Itching and burning; worse, after urinating; better, washing with cold water. Mammie painful and full of milk at menses.
Kreosotum
Skin. Soft, unnatural feel of skin, with pegged teeth. Violent itching all over body, esp. towards evening, and with burning sensation in arms and legs, after scratching. Burning itching at night, and heat over whole body. Nettle-rash. Eruption, like bug-bites, with violent itching esp. in evening. Large, greasy-looking, pox-shaped pustules over whole body. Herpes zoster or shingles. Mealy and pustular, dry or humid titters (on backs of hands and fingers, in palms, on ears, elbows, knuckles, and malleoli), with violent itching in almost every part of body.
Male Sexual Organs:
Burning in genitals (during coition) and impotence. Prepuce bluish black with hemorrhages and gangrene.
Female Sexual Organs:
Premature catamenia, burning in the parts, Dwindling away of mammie, with small, hard, painful lumps in them. Cramp-like pains in external genitals. Excoriation, with smarting pains between genitals and thighs. Shootings in vagina, as if produced by electricity. Voluptuous itching in vagina. Itching in vagina, inducing rubbing in evening, succeeded by smarting, swelling, heat, and induration of external parts, with soreness in vagina when urinating.
Desire for coition especially in morning, after coition, pain, as of excoriation, and hard knottiness in neck of uterus, or swelling of the genital parts (both male and female) with burning pains (worse in morning than in evening). Herpes zoster or shingles.
After coition discharge of dark blood, the next day. Vaginal Prolapses. Prolapses uteri. Pulling, stitches, and shootings in the mammary glands.
Medorrhinum
Yellowness of ski, Intense and incessant itching (and pricking) all over (back, vagina, labia etc). Fiery red band passing down neck, back, and perineum, and involving genitals and pubes. Fiery red rash about anus in babies the water/wetting scalds it terribly. Herpes zoster or shingles.
Scald-head. Tinea capitis, eyelids involved. Copper-colored spots (syphilitic) remaining after eruptions, thin yellow-brown and detach in scales, leaving skin clear and free. Small pedunculated warts, with pinheads, like small button mushrooms, on various parts of body and thigh. Favus. Fetid odor of body. Pains along urethra while urinating, drawing burning. (Suppressed gonorrhea).
Variolinum
Exanthema of sharp, pointed pimples, usually small, seldom large and suppurating, dry, resting on small red areolae, frequently interspersed with spots of red color, sometimes severe itching. Petechial eruptions. Herpes zoster or shingles. Enlargement of testicle. Hard swelling of testicle.
Var. 30 warded off an attack of smallpox after intense sickness of stomach had been caused by the smell of a case.
Var. 1m in water every two hours, given on third day of eruption of a confluent case cut short the attack.
Alumen
Tendency to induration of neck of uterus and mammary glands. Chronic yellow vaginal discharge. Chronic gonorrhea, yellow, with little lumps along urethra. Aphthous patches in vagina. Menses watery.
Herpes zoster or shingles. Ulcers, with indurated base. To be thought of in indurated glands, epithelioma, etc; veins become varicose and bleed. Herpes zoster or shingles. Indurations resulting from long-continued inflammatory irritations. Glands inflame and harden. Alopecia, Scrotal eczema and on back of penis.
Sulphur
Skin dry, scaly, unhealthy; every little injury suppurates. Freckles. Itching, burning; worse scratching and washing. Pimply eruption, pustules, rhagades, hangnails. Excoriation, especially in folds (Lyc). Herpes zoster or shingles. Feeling of a band around bones. Skin affections after local medication. Pruritus, especially from warmth, in evening, often recurs in spring and in damp weather.
P. S: This article is only for doctors having good knowledge about Homeopathy and allopathy, for learning purpose(s).
For proper consultation and treatment, please visit our clinic.
None of above-mentioned medicine(s) is/are the full/complete treatment, but just hints for treatment; every patient has his/her own constitutional medicine.
To order medicine by courier, please send your details at WhatsApp– +923119884588
Dr. Sayyad Qaisar Ahmed (MD {Ukraine}, DHMS), Abdominal Surgeries, Oncological surgeries, Gastroenterologist, Specialist Homeopathic Medicines.
Senior research officer at Dnepropetrovsk state medical academy Ukraine.
Location: Al-Haytham clinic, Umer Farooq Chowk Risalpur Sadder (0923631023, 03119884588), K.P.K, Pakistan.
Find more about Dr Sayed Qaisar Ahmed at:
https://www.youtube.com/Dr Qaisar Ahmed