Investigators at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are recruiting patients to participate in a study of an investigational drug for the treatment of postherpetic neuralgia, the severe pain that can affect patients months to years after they have had shingles. St. Louis is one of 10 sites involved in the study of the drug, called gabapentin. The drug was developed as a treatment for epilepsy. It helps prevent seizures and, in preliminary studies, it also appears to help ease the pain that follows shingles.
Shingles is an inflammation of nerves in the arms, legs, chest or elsewhere in the body.
The same virus that causes the childhood disease chicken pox also causes shingles. About 20-30 percent of people over 60 years of age get shingles, and half of those develop postherpetic neuralgia. In patients over 70, about three-fourths get the severe pain. And once patients pass 70, most have other medical problems. Volunteers for the study must be over 18 and have had pain from postherpetic neuralgia for more than three months after a shingles rash has healed.