On Sat, 25 Apr 1998, boz wrote: > <major snippette> > Hey, speaking of skin and capsaicin - my mom recently had a bout of > shingles (viral skin disease) and the doctors told her there was no topical > treatment to ease the tingling irritation. Someone else told me that there > are cap products that can alleviate this. That's what I suspected, too. > Anybody have information on this? > > Shingles is caused by the herpes simplex virus, the same virus that > causes "cold sores" and/or "fever blisters" around the mouth. My secretary > is punished with these from time to time, and she does the following- cuts > a raw hab in half and applies the cut pepper directly to the area of > scourge. Her eruptions are usually gone within 24 hours, compared to about > 12-14 days if left untreated. So, I don't think a little cap cream would > hurt, if you could stand it. No medical facts to back this up, just figure > if it works on the virus on one part of the body, it should work on another > part of the body. > > the gabacho chile picker <<<boz>>> Huh? I'm not a doctor, but ... I thought that shingles was caused by the same thing as chicken pox. This is from an online dictionary: | Main Entry: herpes zos·ter | Pronunciation: -'zäs-t&r | Function: noun | Etymology: New Latin, literally, girdle herpes | Date: 1807 | : an acute viral inflammation of the sensory ganglia of spinal and | cranial nerves associated with a vesicular eruption and neuralgic | pains and caused by reactivation of the poxvirus causing chicken pox | -- called also shingles I think you've got some stuff confused, Boz. I don't believe that Herpes Simplex and Herpes Zoster are the same. Chuck Demas Needham, Mass. Eat Healthy | _ _ | Nothing would be done at all, Stay Fit | @ @ | If a man waited to do it so well, Die Anyway | v | That no one could find fault with it. demas@tiac.net | \___/ | http://www.tiac.net/users/demas