2024 Volume 31 Issue 7 Pages 158-161
Complications of varicella-zoster virus (VZV) infection include postherpetic neuralgia, myelitis, and meningitis. The typical symptom of myelitis is spastic paraplegia and hemiplegia is rare. We experienced a case in which myelitis was suspected to be the cause of upper limb pain associated with hemiplegia secondary to herpes zoster in the trigeminal nerve region. After the onset of herpes zoster, the patient developed symptoms such as numbness and muscle weakness in the left upper and lower limbs, and experienced burning pain and allodynia throughout the left upper limb. No significant findings were obtained on cerebrospinal fluid VZV polymerase chain reaction or magnetic resonance imaging, however, from the clinical findings it was thought that VZV spread from the trigeminal ganglion to the trigeminal spinal tract nucleus and reached the dorsal horn of the cervical spinal cord, and spread to the ventral horn and root. Central neuropathic pain is treatment resistance, but epidural block and drug treatment were effective in this case.
