Acupuncture-related therapies, specifically acupotomy, bloodletting, acupuncture, fire needle, and moxibustion, are effective intervention measures for treating herpes zoster.
A comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted on 26 randomised controlled trials involving 1929 patients with herpes zoster. For this research, international databases such as PubMed, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, Web of Science, and others, were carefully and systematically searched. The chosen papers were then screened, and their data was extracted independently by two researchers. All gathered data was analyzed using respective software.
In the analysis, it was found that acupotomy worked best in terms of reducing pain and the time of scab formation on the skin. On the other hand, bloodletting was found to be most efficient in halting the formation of new blisters. Moreover, acupuncture significantly improved the time it takes for a crust to fall off, while moxibustion helped in reducing the incidence of lingering pain after the healing of shingles. Western medicines were found to be closely related to adverse reactions.
