Pregabalin has been recommended as the first—line drug for post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN) therapy currently due to its efficacy and safety. However,there was no valuable report at present on the clinical efficacy of pregabalin for acute and subacute herpetic neuralgia (SHN), expect for a smaller study which included 29 outpatients who had acute zoster pain for a period of 7-1 4 days. And it is not clear whether early application of pregabalin can reduce the incidence of PHN.