Al Stone, L.Ac.
Beyond Well Being
Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicines
Santa Monica, CA.
(310) 264-6668
PROPmaster wrote:
I was told to look at your site for information about acupuncture as a help
with pain from shingles (PHN). I am yet to find it. Please advise me
further. Thanks
I guess I'll need to write this one right now. : )
Shingles is of course a member of the herpes family, but more importantly, it hurts. It has vesicles with a fluid inside and the sores and surrounding skin tends to be red as well.
Whenever TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) sees red, we assume there is heat involved. When there is a fluid present that isn't pus, we call that dampness. So, most herpes problems show up looking like what we call damp heat.
We often treat this with herbal formulas that address the problem from the inside out. You'll always have the virus, I believe that it likes to take up residence in the spinal cord, but herbal medicines can both prevent an outbreak of the herpes sores as well as shorten the outbreak once it has happened. As I understand it, shingles tend to happen only once, but genital herpes can recur frequently at first and less frequently as we get older. They are often stress induced as well. Most stress induced pathologies in Chinese medicine have some sort of relationship with the Liver (capitalized to remind the reader that this is the TCM concept of the Liver, not the organ that filters blood etc...) and in the case of herpes, we're usually looking at some sort of dampness and heat that gets into the Liver Channel. This channel wraps around the genitalia and spreads over the chest. These two locations are common areas for herpes outbreaks.
As far as the pain associated with the shingles, we often use acupuncture to address this aspect of the problem. Acupuncture loves pain.
The most frequently prescribed herbal formula for herpes out breaks that are red and fluid filled is called Long Dan Xie Gan Tang. It is available at many Chinese medicine pharmacies.
Be well.
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Al Stone, L.Ac. |