Hopefully he was put on Valtrex when he was diagnosed. I had them in March and started Valtrex the afternoon of my first blister showing up. I still ended up with a pretty severe case. One thing that helped a lot is that I took Gabapentin (Neurontin) which helps with pain caused by nerve damage (like neuropathy). I ended up having to take the highest dose before I started feeling relief and have taken it since March for the post-herpetic pain (post shingles pain). I think many people don't get relief with the Neurontin because of under-dosing. The low dose is 300 mg and the highest dose is over 3000 mg. The dose may cause some drowsiness initially but that passes fairly soon for most people. My physician told me that some people have to take it for the rest of their lives but that isn't generally a problem because of the low incidence of side effects and low cost, but I think that some physicians are hesitant to order a high enough dose. I have been attempting to wean myself off this past week and haven't had the pain return. The only other thing that I can remember that helped during the acute phase was ice packs over the blistered area.