Shingles continues to be a significant problem, and it is a disease that can recur even though you’ve had one episode of it. We’ve developed a vaccine to try to prevent shingles, but it has only been partially effective.

There is now some antiviral medications that do work, but for them to be effective, a patient has to be diagnosed within the first 48 to 72 hours and get started on that medication at that time.

One technique that I have used in the past is radiation therapy to treat the ganglia area of the nerve distribution that is showing the shingles rash. This to me has been very effective. But again, it works best if it’s used in the early stages and is a dose of usually 150 per treatment, with a maximum of 3 treatments.

To find out information about the different ways of treating shingles, search on the Internet under “radiation” go to radiation therapy for shingles and then you can also look up the different treatments that are available for shingles.

You can also get information on natural ways of treating shingles, such as hydrogen peroxide on the affected area. Usually 3 percent ointment is available in stores.

There is also an amino acid nutrient, L-lysine that is reported to help in the treatment of shingles and is available from drug stores.