Shingles viral infection is a well known, very distressing and sometimes quite painful nerve infection. It is triggered when the Herpes Zoster virus gets reactivated in one’s late adult years, but can only occur if you suffered from an attack of Chicken Pox as a child or were vaccinated to prevent chicken pox when young.

No cure for Shingles has been found yet, however there are many preparations to relieve or treat the symptoms.

Homeopathic herbal preparations are one of several natural shingles remedies that can be effective in treating shingles. Generally speaking, in homeopathy the method used is to analyse the symptoms displayed by the patient, and then seek out herbs that mimic these symptoms. The principle is to find natural herbal substances that create similar symptoms to those caused by the Shingles infection itself and then take minute or tiny quantities of these substances in highly diluted doses.

The good thing about homeopathic remedies is that since they are so dilute they will not interfere with any western medications you may be using and in addition are not harmful to use. They also do not produce the side effects common to pharmaceutical drugs.

For more serious types of shingles such as shingles of the eye or other sensitive tissues, you should always consult your doctor.

How to treat Shingles with Homeopathic Remedies and Treatments:
Several people have been able to use homeopathic remedies to successfully relieve their symptoms where conventional medicine has proved inadequate. Often they also work faster, are safer and lack the side effects of synthetic medicines.

When selecting a homeopathic remedy to counter an attack of shingles, you would not approach the treatment in the same way as you would in treating it by using regular medicine.

Conventionally, in western medical practice, you try to find drugs or treatments to counteract the ailment, for example to ease itching rashes you might look for the best antihistamine drug to suppress the itching or stop the rashes from forming. Contrary to this, in homeopathy you would rather list the symptoms you are suffering from then choose from a list of shingles remedies the one that produces the closest matching symptoms. This would be the most appropriate remedy to use.

If you take a shingles remedy and it does not work for you, all you need to do is to swap it with another one that creates a different set of effects – effects that more closely match the symptoms you are experiencing.

Some of the advantages of homeopathic remedies for shingles are that because they are so diluted a) there is no chance of getting an overdose and b) they don’t clash with any other treatments you may be receiving.

You should however follow certain rules if you are determined to treat yourself effectively. Firstly, avoid eating or drinking for an hour prior to taking the preparation. Also, ensure you keep your mouth quite clean before and after you take the preparation. In addition, you must make sure you don’t contaminate the remedy by touching it directly.

If after using the remedy for a while you find that it is having little or no effect, you should stop using it. As these herbal preparations are so specific to particular symptoms, the fact that it is not working usually indicates that the remedy you chose is not really a good match for your symptoms so you just need to switch to a different remedy that is more appropriate or closely matching.

The ideal option for you would be to find a trained homeopathic therapist. Depending on where you live, availability or expense, this may not always be an option.

One of the commonly used natural homeopathic shingles remedies in use today is Rhus Toxicodendron. It is of most use in cases where you suffer from the following symptoms of shingles: