Causes of Postherpetic Neuralgia
PHN is primarily caused by the damage or dysfunction of nerves that register pain, pressure, and other sensory nerve. It occurs as a result of shingles, which is caused by the herpes varicella-zoster virus that is known as chicken pox. Once you contract chickenpox as a child, there becomes a possibility that you might later get postherpetic neuralgia years later.
After one recover from chickenpox, the virus can stay inactive in the nervous system and may later become reactivated, causing shingles. The reactivation of the HZ virus is usually as a result of stress on the body from either another infection or the immune system been compromised by a disease such as cancer or leukemia, [3] which would lead to the escape of the HZ virus from the dorsal root cell.
The nerve damage caused by shingles would affect the functioning of the nerve. When the nerve function is disrupted, the nerves start to send random, chaotic pain signals to the brain. This is what causes the throbbing, burning pain along the nerve. However, not everyone that gets shingles later gets postherpetic neuralgia.