acute treatment of Post-herpetic neuralgias in homeopathy

Post-herpetic neuralgias
 There is another group of conditions of the same type, the post-herpetic neuralgias, which are sometimes very troublesome. You know the ordinary shingles neuralgia where the patient comes with acute burning pain along the course of the intercostal nerve and gives a history that he has had a small crop of shingles, very often so light that he paid little or no attention to it. Well, if you can get the same modalities as you got in the facial neuralgias under Mag. Phos., that remedy will often relieve. Much more commonly you find that these post-herpetic cases respond to Ranunculus. The particular features for this drug are the history of herpes, the very sharp shooting pains extending along the course of the intercostal nerve, that the painful area is very sensitive to touch, that the pain is induced or aggravated by it, and you may get the statement that the patient is extremely conscious of any weather change because it will cause a return of the neuralgia again. Well, that type of case responds in almost every instance to Ranunculus.

 You will get a few of these cases which have not responded to Ranunculus, with much the same distribution of pain, and the same modalities, but without the marked aggravation in wet weather, where the affected area is extremely sensitive to any cold draught, particularly sensitive to any bathing with cold water, and where the pains are likely to be very troublesome at night, and with a marked hyperaesthesia over the affected area. And these cases usually respond to Mezereum.
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 Sciatica
 Then you get another type of neuralgia - the sciaticas. And there again you can get helpful leads. In cases of sciatica, in which I can get no indications at all but the ordinary classical symptoms of sciatica, that is to say, acute pain down the sciatic nerve, which is aggravated by any movement, is very sensitive to cold, more comfortable if kept quiet and warm, then it depends which leg is involved what drug I give. If it is a right sided sciatica I give Mag. Phos., but if it is a left sided I give Colocynth. And you would be astonished how often one gets almost immediate relief from either Mag. Phos. or Colocynth.
 Some sciatica patients are frightfully uncomfortable the longer they keep still, they have got to start moving, and there are two drugs which seem to cover the majority of these cases. If the patient is warm-blooded, and the sciatic pains tend to be more troublesome when warm, particularly warmth of bed, and rather better when moving about, in the majority of instances one gets relief from Kali Iod.
 If, on the other hand, you have very much the same modalities with a chilly patient, particularly if he is sensitive to damp as well as cold, and again more comfortable when moving about, Rhus will clear the majority of such cases.
 Then there are one or two odd indications which sometimes help you in a sciatica where you can get no other distinguishing symptoms. For instance, if you get a sciatica which has, associated with the acute sciatic pain, marked numbness, there are two drugs which cover most of your cases. One is Gnaphalium, which has this sensation of numbness associated with pain and tenderness over the sciatic nerve more marked than any other drug in the Materia Medica.
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 The second drug which has this numbness associated with pain and tenderness of the sciatic nerve is Plumbum, and the main indication which suggests this remedy is that. I have never seen a sciatica giving indications for Plumbum which was not associated with extreme constipation as well as the pain and numbness.