This goes along with my theory that a shock or jolt to the nerves makes them "straighten up and fly right". I hope you don;t actually damage tissue though.

My jolt to the nerves, on my forehead, is to use a stinging hot wash cloth that stops the sting-itch. Others swear by a jolt from a cold compress.

I wonder if we could shock ourselves with a little jolt of electricity. That might cause the damaged nerves to work right. Any suggestions? What could be used. I like to experiment.

Yes, the electricity sounds great. I think a study should be done on this, because it's possible thousands of people are suffering through ineffective or side-effect-ridden drugs, who could be helped by some 'fly straight' action. Here's what I wrote on another forum;
"My take on this is that I'm replacing random faulty nerve impulses that are caught in some kind of positive feedback loop, with real ones arising out of real physical stimuli."... pretty much the same thinking as yours.

The director of a support group abroad has just written to me. I hope she will not mind me quoting her;
"This is useful information and follows up some recent advice we have had re allodynia. Allodynia is over-sensitivity of the area affected by the shingles pain, so that a person cannot even bear clothes/sheets against their skin. (Very difficult to deal with, you can imagine.) Apparently, scrubbing the over-sensitive area with a loofah (like your 'mangling') shoots the pain through the barrier too..."

Getting technical aren't we.
The International Association for the Study of Pain put out a paper in 1999 that gets pretty technical. It is called "Is Post-Herpetic Neuralgia More than One Disorder?"

It claims that there may be three subtypes of PHN. I had to look up a lot of words in the paper. What it boiled down to in my mind was that the swelling of the nerves from shingles can destroy sensory nerves, partially injure the sensory nerves, or a combination of destruction and injury of sensory nerves.

What I wanted to say is that jolting nerves into working correctly was not theorized. It should be investigated, if it has not been already.

Thank you for this excellent ref, Mike.

My mom had shingles about 5 years ago on the left side of her face up into her hair line, and she suffers from a pretty bad case of PHN. Only recently, she has told me that if she rubs/scratches her head and forehead vigorously, that it helps a lot. Sounds like exactly what you are talking about. PS: My shingles were on the same place, and although I have PHN too, it's not as bad. My grandmother had them 20 years ago. Sure supports the genetic connection, doesn't it?

Thanks linoblock, it's great to hear that your mum found that this kind of full-on stimulus in the painful area helped her. It's really good to know that there are a few of us who have have independently made this discovery for ourselves. It would be just excellent if anecdontal evidence could show that not just idiosycratically but generally, strong stimuli to the area affected by the postherpetic neuralgia do help people!

Interesting too that your mum and gran had it too. I don't know about my mum, but my grandmother had it, I recall.

phunck89 made this statement that goes along with this thread.
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I have a problem with the itching all over my head and neck, and the only thing I've found that works at all is a small plastic fork. I gave up on itching because it does nothing for the itch (like a dry skin itch), so now I gently glide my hand over the area and it does the same as actually itching. When it gets really bad I take the small plastic fork and poke the areas that are itching. Works wonders.... temporarily.
Posted on 11/20/11, 04:39 pm

I have had phn for 6 months and strangely since day 1 of shingles till now there has been the daily pain and sensitivity to anything rubbing my skin (front and back rib cage) but never once was there any itching in my case. I live in Texas and it was here in June when I came down with the shingles and in Sept. I visited in Massachusetts where the weather was quite cooler and even cold at times.By this time It was now PHN and It was there and then that my stinging/burning pain was the worse, especially early in the morning when I first got up, when there was practically no meds in my system.
I'm on 1800mg of gaberpentin and 10/500mg of hydrocodone 4 times per day and by 6pm my pain is at the lowest and lasts until the next morning and then the cycle continues.

I had Shingles from my middle back, around the left side, to my chest about 2 months ago (the T5 dermatome). I went through extreme deep pain for the first 5 to 6 weeks. Then that pain slowly faded, and now I am left with strong itching along that nerve, but at the skin surface. I am thinking it was there all along, but was being "overshadowed" by the deep pain before. Anyway, I have found a way to temporarily stop the itching. I use a flat men's hair brush, with stiff bristles, and use that over the entire area. Of course, I don't press so hard that it would cause bleeding. About 2 or 3 minutes of this, will stop the itching for two or three hours.

Wow David, that is interesting and nifty, using a hairbrush! Thankyou for letting me know about this.
So it looks like applying a replacement, real sensation to an area affected by postherpetic neuralgia is working for people with either or both of pain and itching, both around the head and neck and the torso.
We might really be onto something.

I get the pain-itch in the morning and in the evening. I use the stinging hot washcloth at those times. It could be the scrubbing more them the heat that is stopping the irritation.

I have the classic allodynia symptom where a light touch causes pain, but if you press down hard, the pain goes away temporarily, in the spot pressed. People sometimes give me funny looks, when they see me pushing on my forehead with one finger.

I gave the plastic fork trick a try last night instead of using the washcloth. I poked the tines around on my forehead to a point where it hurt a little but made no damage. You should have seen the funny look my wife gave me. For 30 seconds I thought I had made it worse. Then the burn-itch went away for the next few hours. It works! So, dsusr, your description of applying a real sensation as a replacement for the allodynia, is a good one.

I found a definition for allodynia that says it is pain when the stimulus must not be normally painful.
It appears, that this anti-allodynia stimulus is the opposite, a stimulus that must normally be painful. Or at least it must be irritating enough to counteract or "replace" the allodynia.

David's hairbrush is a shining example of this anti-allodynia stimulus.

Yes that is the risky-feeling, perhaps scary aspect of this strange and unexpected cure- the fact that at first, the pain gets a lot worse for a second or two before vanishing completely. I have found that I have to be both bold and fast; ie I have to put a lot of pressure on right from the start. That way, it's as if the nerves have no chance to misfire. They get forced out of their misfire straight away.
If I try to do the radical ear-mangle when there's no postherpetic neuralgia there, it does hurt a somewhat- though nothing like the neuralgia of course either in character or intensity, Still, it reinforces for me that the sensation I give it has to be full-on. A gentle massage would only make the neuralgia pain shoot up without forcing it through the pain barrier to the nothing that's beyond.
That is a very nice and neat way to describe our fix, altering that definition for our purposes for an anti allodynia stimulus to be 'a stimulus that must normally be painful'.

I found an abstract of a study where it says that half the people tested had their allodynia reduced after homotopic stimulation. In the abstract they do not offer any reason why this happens.
------------------------------------------

Eur J Pain. 2009 Oct;13(9):942-8. Epub 2008 Dec 30.
Homotopic stimulation can reduce the area of allodynia in patients with neuropathic pain.
Love-Jones SJ, Besson M, Steeds CE, Brook P, Chizh BA, Pickering AE.
Source

Pain Clinic, Bristol Royal Infirmary, Bristol, UK.
Abstract

Allodynia is a common, troublesome feature of neuropathic pain conditions. In a previous study of postherpetic neuralgia we observed that repeated tactile stimulation appeared to reduce the size of the area of allodynia in some patients. We have undertaken a pragmatic clinical study to characterise this phenomenon in neuropathic pain patients with a range of different aetiologies. Neuropathic pain patients with a discrete area of tactile allodynia were recruited (n=20). We assessed the sensitive area using punctate and dynamic tactile stimuli, and thermal quantitative sensory testing. On two separate testing visits, the patients had repeated (10x over 1 min) noxious heat or cotton bud strokes applied to the affected site or contralaterally. Tactile stimulation of the affected area evoked pain (median 7 NRS) and a reduction (>30%) in the area of allodynia in 9/18 patients (maximum -48+/-9%, after 20 min), although the intensity of allodynic pain was unchanged. This effect persisted for over 1h and was present the following day in all patients tested (n=5/5). No subjects showed an increase in area after allodynic stimulation. There was no change in heat pain threshold at a distant site following allodynic stimulation, suggesting no activation of diffuse noxious inhibitory control. Repeated thermal noxious stimulation (median NRS 7) could also elicit changes (>30%) in the area of allodynia in some patients (reductions in 7/20, increases in 3/20). Thus, we have found that a brief period of homotopic painful stimulation can reduce the area of allodynia in around half of patients with established neuropathic pains.

PMID:
19117776
[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Good sleuthing. Something in the region of what we've been discovering... in cases of allodynia, if touched in a certain way the affected area gets smaller in some people, but it also makes it hurt, and the pain stays. Or you can apply heat and the affected area sometimes gets smaller without a reduction in the intensity.
It seems like a cautious study, where perhaps the stimulus hasn't been 'noxious' [:D] enough to effect a 100% reduction in both area and intensity.

What's happened with me is the 100%/100% jackpot for severe postherpetic neuralgia where rigorous stimulation makes the pain disappear completely. I'm still hoping some other folks will turn up to say that this works for them too.