• Jennifer Sayanlar, Nilufer Guleyupoglu, Russell Portenoy, and Sait Ashina.
• Department of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Beth Israel Medical Center, New York, NY, USA.
• J Headache Pain. 2012 Oct 1;13(7):587-9.

AbstractPostherpetic neuralgia has been variably defined but is generally understood to be pain that persists for longer than a few months after an attack of herpes zoster. Pain persists for years in approximately 10 % of those afflicted with acute herpes zoster. The likelihood of postherpetic neuralgia increases with older age, severity of the zoster, trigeminal location, and other factors. Postherpetic neuralgia is a neuropathic pain and treatment usually involves sequential trials of topical and systemic drugs; a variety of other therapies may be considered in refractory cases. A new topical capsaicin 8 % patch has been approved for this indication based on the positive studies in patients with non-trigeminal postherpetic neuralgia. Experience with the use of the capsaicin 8 % patch for trigeminal distribution neuralgia is lacking. We report a case of trigeminal postherpetic neuralgia which was safely and effectively treated with capsaicin 8 % patch.

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