Abdominal muscle paralysis in herpes zoster

Herpes zoster or Shingles, an inflammatory viral disease caused by varicella has classical clinical presentation with herpetic morphological pattern exhibited along one or more dermatomes. The self limiting skin disease is accompanied by pain and burning sensations leading to post herpetic neuralgia. The sensory component of the disease is so prominent that the motor involvement is often overlooked. It was not known till recently that profound muscle weakness can be a part of this syndrome. We report 2 cases of herpes zoster who had prominent appreciable motor weakness of the abdominal muscles following the disease. The weakness however has a better prognosis and the lesions in both of our patients healed in 6 months without leaving any residual paralysis.