Shingles (Herpes or Zoster)

Shingles is a painful, blistering skin rash due to the virus that causes chickenpox.

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The symptom is usually on one side of body, left or right. The rash appears in a band, a strip, or a small area. Shingles also cause pain, tingling, burning or like a piecing feeling with needles. The pain and burning may be severe and is usually present before any rash appears. Many patients express they would rather die than suffer with this kind of pain. I suspect the pain may be caused by blood stasis or nerve pinch. Some don’t have pain, but only rash.

According to western medicine, shingles occurs when the patient’s immune system has been weakened by medications or disease. I notice the weak immune system in my patients. Where does a weak immune system begin? The answer to me is the weakness of 5 yin organs (liver, heart, spleen, lung and kidney) and 6 yang organs (gallbladder, small intestine, stomach, large intestine, urinary bladder and san jiao). I try to find what the weakest organ function in origin is and tonify that organ. This simple idea works very well. The severe pain is gone on the first treatment in most cases.


Shingles was helped by Acupuncture

Case 1

This patient who is 65 years old has shingles on his neck. Rash is red and about 0.5cm in thickness. He has suffered about 6 weeks and couldn’t sleep at night due to pains. He took anti-inflammatory drugs and virus drugs. These didn’t help. His wife told him to see an acupuncturist, but he refused as he believes “how can acupuncture help even though western medicine can’t help”.

He finally decided to try acupuncture treatment as he can’t stand his wife’s nagging. I told him as a joke, “as you don’t believe acupuncture, I would give you painful needling”. He answered "no matter what you do, my present pain can’t be compared with that”. So he doesn’t care about pain from needling and asked me just to remove the pain from the shingles. On the next visit his red rashes are changed into darkish and he has no more pain at all. He said “your acupuncture skill is marvelous”. He also ordered herbal medication to make his immune system stronger. When he came to pick up herbs, his shingles were completely gone except a little darkish skin. He really appreciates me again and again.

Case 2

This lady comes from Uzbekistan. She took prescribed medicine which is steroid type. The medicine worked for temporary relief, but gradually started not working at all. The shingles location is on lower bag and thigh area. Her rash is green instead of red and she told me that her Russian doctor used his country’s traditional method.

She worries that needling may be painful. When I touched the tube containing a needle, she became very nervous. I asked her “Are you ok?” She answered me “ok”. At the moment she says ok, a needle was inserted. This is one great method and principle of tonification while breathing out. When I take away the tube, she asked me why I don’t put needle into her. I told her I finished already. She said she worried for nothing as far as needle pain concerned. I checked her pulse a few minutes later and found her pulse became normal. I asked her about the pain. She told me her pain disappeared and hope to stay this way forever.

Case 3 Shingles on top of bone marrow cancer

When she opened the gauze covering her right side from the back bone to the umbilicus, there were about 30 mulberry sized blisters whose color is dingy and the skin was darkish, too. When the cloth touches the skin, she experiences a sharp pain. She was recovering from the bone marrow cancer which is bone cancer of the leukemia that occurred in the bone marrow. The location of bone cancer is on the same region as the shingles rash. I have to be very careful to approach this case as I am afraid of the possibility for cancer cells to spread.

The first treatment makes the skin color to become a lighter color and she had less pain. The second treatment was to dry the water-like blisters, as these belong to damp heat. Blister scabs are falling after a week. I also gave her herbal medication which can provide energy lifting. Her cheek turns to pink and her body gets more energy, enabling simple exercise like walking. Whenever she comes to the clinic, I notice she does her makeup. You know what women doing make up means they are recovering. Not only was her shingles cured, but also as an aftereffect, her bone cancer is improving.

Conclusion

As shingles occurs when the immune system is weakened, the acupuncturist finds the organ that originally caused the weakness and tonifies that organ. Lots of patients are helped with acupuncture because of this simple idea. This takes 1-4 treatments in most cases.


Am I a candidate of the Nobel Prize?

One shingles patient got a complete recovery after three acupuncture treatments. He went to the pharmacist to return prescriptions; pain killers and antibiotics. The pharmacist refused to give money back and asked how it is possible for a full recovery after 3 treatments and said that acupuncturist must receive a Nobel Prize.

I will take it if they give.

Shingles occurs when the immune system is weak. Everyone knows about this. Then why give only antibiotics and pain killers?

All I did was to strengthen the weak organs. I believe this is the right answer. As the immune system has weakened, the immune system must be taken care of. All symptoms have the cause. So we have to treat the cause. Am I right?