What is the prognosis?
Favorable; the symptoms usually disappearing in two to four weeks. In some instances, however, the neuralgic pains may be persistent, and in zoster of the supra-orbital region the eye may suffer permanent damage.
How would you treat herpes zoster?
Constitutional treatment, usually tonic in character, is to be based upon general principles; moderate doses of quinia, with one-sixth grain of zinc phosphide, four or five times daily, appear in some cases to have a special value. The accompanying neuralgic pain may be so intense as to require anodynes.
Local treatment should be of a soothing and protective character. A dusting-powder of oxide of zinc and starch (to the ounce of which twenty to thirty grains of camphor may be added) proves useful; and over this, in order that the parts be further protected, a bandage or a layer of cotton batting. Oxide-of-zinc ointment, and in those cases in which there is much pain, ointments containing powdered opium or belladonna, or orthoform, may be used. A mild galvanic current applied daily to the parts is often of great advantage, both in its influence upon the course of the eruption and upon the neuralgic pain. The plan, so often advised, of painting the parts with flexible collodion is not to be commended.
Dermatitis Herpetiformis.
(Synonyms: Hydroa Herpetiforme (Tilbury Fox); Herpes Gestationis (Bulkley); Pemphigus Prurigiuosus; Duhring's Disease.)
Give a definition of dermatitis herpetiformis.
Dermatitis herpetiformis is a somewhat rare inflammatory disease, characterized by an eruption of an erythematous, papular, vesicular, pustular, bullous or mixed type, with a decided disposition toward grouping, accompanied by itching and burning sensations, with, as a rule, more or less consequent pigmentation, and pursuing usually a chronic course with remissions.
Describe the erythematous type of dermatitis herpetiformis.