Description: The National Pain Foundation (NPF) today declared September 15 as Postherpetic Neuralgia (PHN) Awareness Day. The first PHN Awareness Day falls during National Pain Awareness Month and was created to draw attention to the pain caused by shingles and PHN, also known as after-shingles pain. Shingles is caused by the reactivation of the same virus that causes chickenpox and can affect an individual at anytime without warning. More than 90 percent of adults in the United States have had chickenpox, placing them at risk for shingles. One in every five of the 1 million Americans that suffer from shingles each year will go on to develop PHN, a devastating condition that disproportionately affects those over the age of 50 or with weakened immune systems.
To view Multimedia News Release, go to http://www.prnewswire.com/mnr/npf/37795/