Zoster sine herpete - Shingles without a rash. Familiar to anyone?

[Ryan31337]

Hi all,

Curious to know if anyone here has Zoster sine herpete (Shingles without a rash)?

I'm currently waiting for a neurologist to tick-off less invasive investigations before preceding to a lumbar puncture to look for herpes virus in cerebral spinal fluid. I believe valganciclovir was mentioned as treatment if this comes up positive.

In brief I was in a period of good remission when I experienced a significant viral infection, suspected by on-call doc to be shingles (trigeminal nerve). The rash never appeared so I was not treated, but symptoms and recovery matched shingles expectations. I was mostly bed/house bound for about 5 weeks before pain and illness lifted. I am fairly certain I developed hypertension at this time.

Some months after I began experiencing periodic neurological symptoms, radicular pain (trigeminal nerve again & legs), 1-sided numbness (lower arm and lower leg) and more rarely allodynia. I have noticed occasional small spots/rash associated with the allodynia. All symptoms come with a typical viral prodrome of mild fever, tachycardia, lethargy etc.

These patterns had been getting progressively more frequent and severe in the past 6 months, so I decided to self-treat with Acyclovir 400mg twice daily. I have pulsed this now 3x times and see definite improvement (though not complete resolution) whilst taking and reoccurrence of symptoms again soon after discontinuing. I'm aware this is quite a low dose but I am taking a prescription med without guidance so wanted to play it safe.

If anyone has similar symptoms, experience or thoughts I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks,
Ryan

 

[Sue]

I pulse with valcyclovir 500mg twice a day and celexicob ( Celebrex) 200mg twice a day. I had high IGG titer s for Epstein Barr . I never had any invasive or extensive testing. My family doctor gave me this combo . I took it for 6 months straight at first. Now I pulse if I notice the fibromyalgia pain increasing.


This combo got my fibromyalgia pain from the severe ( on fentanyl patches all the time) to mild . The Celebrex enhances the antiviral properties of the valtrex from what I researched, similiar to what clavolonate does with penicillin ( hence Augmentin).

Taking valtrex alone did nothing when I added the celexicob this is when I felt a great benefit. Celexicob causes my blood pressure to creep up so Sometimes I only use the valtrex.
I have thought about Zoster sine herpete due to the fact that my pain was severe. I had severe allodynia not localized pain.

 

[Ben McNevis]

Does anyone understand how GPs perceive the missing link in "You had shingles" - "You have post-herpatic rash" - Do they rally believe that zoster vanishes? I met emphatic, responsive GP recently, but this was one of the elephants in the room