Shingles and tricyclics

Are tricyclic anti-depressants useful for treating the pain of shingles (herpes zoster?

Tricyclic antidepressants do work but only in a few people with treatment of post herpetic neuralgia. Post herpetic neuralgia is the residual pain that occurs after shingles. These drugs take a few weeks to work but are very effective. Unfortunately, these drugs have numerous side effects. Overall, these drugs only benefit less than 20% of patients. Some physicians even prescribe anti convulsants for the treatment of post-herpetic neuralgia. These drugs also effective in reducing the pain.

In many cases, it is a trial and error of drug therapies. You keep on trying until one works. Unfortunately, most of medicine is like this. Medicine is full of bad drugs and doctors.