Are B Vitamins Good For Shingles?

Shingles, caused by the herpes zoster virus, can cause long-lasting pain. The virus, which also causes chicken pox, lives in the nerves after an initial infection and causes flare-ups of pain and blisters along the nerve root, usually in people over age 50. Post-herpetic neuralgia, persistent pain along the nerve, can remain for months or years after the flare-up. Several B vitamins may help with different types of neuralgia, or nerve pain, although clinical studies are lacking. Ask your doctor before taking B vitamin supplements for this condition.

Vitamin B and Nerves

The B-complex family of vitamins consists of eight different compounds. Several of the B-complex vitamins have an effect on nervous system functioning. Vitamin B-12 deficiency may cause peripheral nerve problems, so some clinicians use it to treat the peripheral nerve pain of post-herpetic neuralgia, or PHN.

Studies

Few clinical studies exist on the effects of B vitamins on PHN and the ones that do exist, on the effects of B-12, are over 50 years old and not available online. They provide only weak evidence of effectiveness, according to NYU Langone Medical Center. A study reported in the 1959 "British Journal of Ophthalmology" by researchers from the Bristol Eye Hospital found no evidence of B-12 deficiency in patients with herpes zoster ophthalmicus, a shingles infection that affects the eye. Researchers state that any excess of B-12 taken in patients with normal B-12 levels would most likely simply be washed out of the body in the urine. They further noted that studies found no effect in treating shingles with either B-1 or B-12.

Risks

B-complex vitamins are water-soluble, meaning that they do not accumulate in the fatty tissue of the body but wash out in the urine if taken in excessive amounts. Very large doses of vitamin B-6 can cause nerve damage, which usually subsides if you stop taking the vitamin.

Considerations

Evidence of benefit for using B vitamins to treat shingles is mostly anecdotal or taken from very old studies. Although the book, "Nutrition Almanac" by John Kirschmann mentions that vitamin B-1 and B-12 injections help PHN, the book offers no clinical proof of this. Studies that claim to show benefit for B-12 injections did not include a control group and may show a placebo effect, according to Healthnotes. Talk to your doctor before taking B vitamin supplements to treat shingles or PHN.