{"id":5732,"date":"2022-07-24T04:55:53","date_gmt":"2022-07-24T04:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyhealthybox.com\/2022\/07\/24\/from-vitamin-c-therapy-to-acupuncture-natural-ways-to-prevent-and-ease-shingles\/"},"modified":"2022-07-24T04:55:53","modified_gmt":"2022-07-24T04:55:53","slug":"from-vitamin-c-therapy-to-acupuncture-natural-ways-to-prevent-and-ease-shingles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/?p=5732","title":{"rendered":"From vitamin C therapy to acupuncture: Natural ways to prevent and ease shingles"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Even though at least one\u00a0in three people will develop shingles, or herpes zoster, in their lifetime, there are only a handful of effective remedies for the viral disease.<\/p>\n

A person develops shingles when\u00a0latent varicella-zoster\/chickenpox virus reactivates\u00a0along the sensory nerves in the skin. The symptoms of shingles include painful blisters that last for about two to four weeks.<\/p>\n

The condition’s long-term\u00a0complications include chronic pain that can last for several months or even years. This can severely affect a person’s quality of life. Other possible complications\u00a0are blindness,\u00a0hearing loss, meningitis, and neuropathy.<\/p>\n

Unlike drugs that are linked to negative side effects, the following natural remedies can ease the symptoms or treat shingles effectively.<\/p>\n

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  1. Acupuncture\u00a0— Acute herpes zoster is a common condition and pain is one of its major symptoms. Even though effective pain therapy is limited, acupuncture can help ease the discomfort caused by the disease. In a Chinese study, acupuncture proved to be more effective\u00a0than medication in treating pain \u2013 with acupuncture being at least 25 percent more effective than\u00a0valacyclovir hydrochloride, a drug usually prescribed for shingles. The cure rate also followed a similar pattern: 75 percent for electroacupuncture, while that for the drug was only a measly 37.5 percent.<\/li>\n
  2. Capsaicin — Postherpetic neuralgia is a complication of shingles that may persist even after the initial rash and blisters linked to the disease have disappeared. Postherpetic neuralgia affects the nerve fibers and skin, causing chronic, burning pain.\u00a0Capsaicin, the compound in hot peppers that gives them their spicy taste, has been shown in studies to help treat postherpetic neuralgia.\u00a0According to researchers, capsaicin doesn’t react to drugs and it isn’t linked to systemic toxicity, making it effective for treatment.<\/li>\n
  3. Fruits and vegetables\u00a0—\u00a0Diets low in micronutrients (or antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals, etc.) can weaken the immune system, increasing an individual’s risk of developing shingles. In a British community-based case-control study, researchers isolated a connection\u00a0between low fruit consumption and greater shingles risk. Individuals who consumed less than a\u00a0piece of fruit weekly had over thrice the risk of shingles, unlike those who ate more than three pieces of fruit daily. The results were the same when the researchers combined the participants’ fruit and vegetable intake. Foods rich in vitamins include\u00a0beans,\u00a0chicken,\u00a0dairy,\u00a0eggs,\u00a0leafy green vegetables, orange and yellow fruits,\u00a0spinach, tomatoes, whole grains, and wild-caught fish.<\/li>\n
  4. Peppermint oil — In a case study, a 76-year-old woman reported that standard pain therapies couldn’t relieve the pain caused by shingles. Doctors recommended the application of neat peppermint oil, which contained 10 percent menthol, to her skin. The woman shared that the peppermint oil almost immediately relieved the pain caused by the disease. She added that the oil eased the pain she felt for at least four to six hours after the oil was applied.\u00a0(Related:\u00a0Treating shingles with homeopathy.)<\/li>\n
  5. Tai chi\u00a0— The risk of developing shingles greatly increases with age since immunity to the chickenpox virus decreases as we get older. But based on the results of a study from the\u00a0University of California, Los Angeles\u00a0<\/em>(UCLA), tai chi can help strengthen immunity to the virus that causes shingles. In particular, cell-mediated immunity to the varicella zoster virus went up by about 50 percent following the tai chi sessions.<\/li>\n
  6. UVB Light (ultraviolet light) therapy\u00a0— UVB light therapy can help reduce the pain caused by shingles. For a study that compared the effects of UVB light therapy with a drug called acyclovir, researchers discovered that after a month,\u00a058.33 percent of the patients who received light therapy reported that they were pain-free, compared to only 38.46 percent of the participants who only took the drug.\u00a0After\u00a0three months, 83.33 percent of the participants from the first group were completely pain-free, with only 53.85 percent of the drug group reporting the same. Pain severity of pain was also recused among those in the light therapy group.<\/li>\n
  7. Vitamin C therapy — Dr. Thomas Levy reports that vitamin C can effectively treat shingles. For a study, eight patients with shingles were given about 2,000 to 3,000 milligrams (mg) of vitamin C via injection every 12 hours. The dosages were supplemented by 1,000 mg of fruit juice every two hours. Seven of the eight patients reported complete pain relief in under two hours following the first injection.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The power of the elements: Discover Colloidal Silver Mouthwash with quality, natural ingredients like Sangre de Drago sap, black walnut hulls, menthol crystals and more. Zero artificial sweeteners, colors or alcohol. Learn more at the Health Ranger Store and help support this news site.<\/em><\/p>\n

    You can read more articles about effective natural remedies for shingles at Naturalcures<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    Sources include:<\/p>\n

    GreenMedInfo<\/p>\n

    Healthline<\/p>\n

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    \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Even though at least one\u00a0in three people will develop shingles, or herpes zoster, in their lifetime, there are only a handful of effective remedies for the viral disease. A person develops shingles when\u00a0latent varicella-zoster\/chickenpox virus reactivates\u00a0along the sensory nerves in the skin. The symptoms of shingles include painful blisters that last for about two to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[730,731,36,609],"class_list":{"0":"post-5732","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthy-food","8":"tag-acupuncture","9":"tag-natural","10":"tag-therapy","11":"tag-vitamin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthoptibody.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}