shingles pain advice needed

[blueberrysorbet]

hi, my mum is in her 70's and has shingles- she says its vv painful- has anyone got any tips for dealing with it? camomile lotion doesn;t help and she is on paracetamol as she drives and the doc said the other painkiller she won;t be able to drive with. she says the paracetamol is useless thanks..

Paracetamol not likely to have a good effect on shingles pain as it is nerve pain, usually treated with either amitriptyline(likely to cause drowsiness, esp at first) or gabapentin(not especially likely to cause drowsiness)

Shingles pain can be hard to manage, and persistant, so do encourage her to go back to GP to look at the options again, it is not fair to expect her to just put up with it. Alternatives include creams containing Capsaicin (chilli/pepper extract) which can help after the lesions are all dried up, they would need to be prescribed though. And they are quite ££ for the GP but may be something to try.

As a plan b, consider asking for referral to pain clinic where an anaesthetist can try all suitable pain relief methods with her. hth

alot of doctors will prescribe co-codamol 30/500 which seems to help most people

thanks- she is on the codamol at the mo but only til she starts driving again. The camomile lotion the doc gave her has not worked at all and made it worse- the doc seems really uninterested tbh. will tell her what you all said and see what happens! thanks v much