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Capsaicin Tested On Surgical Wounds
Ponca City, We Love You writes "Bite a hot pepper, and after the burn your tongue goes numb. The Baltimore Sun reports that Capsaicin, the chemical that gives chili peppers their fire, is being dripped directly into open wounds during highly painful operations, bathing surgically exposed nerves in a high enough dose to numb them for weeks. As a result patients suffer less pain and require fewer narcotic painkillers as they heal. 'We wanted to exploit this numbness,' says Dr. Eske Aasvang, a pain specialist who is testing the substance. Capsaicin works by binding to C fibers called TRPV1, the nerve endings responsible for long-lasting aching and throbbing pain. Experiments are under way involving several hundred patients undergoing various surgeries, including knee and hip replacements using an ultra-purified version of Capsaicin to avoid infection. Volunteers are under anesthesia so they don't feel the initial burn."
The hottest pepper record has been broken.
In the Scoville Organoleptic Test, the Bhut Jolokia pepper scores over 1,000,000
Very interesting. I can say as a doctor I've never seen this used before though, but it reminded me of a few things:
:)
During surgery the patient is unconscious, and thus feels no pain, but good surgeons recognize that local anesthesia is still necessary. It's a bit counterintuitive, and I remember being puzzled back in medical school that the surgeons would still numb the area before doing any work despite the patient being unresponsive regardless. The thought is that nerves are damaged and there are changes / responses to the painful stimulus that persist despite the individual being unconscious; in a way, you still have neuronal pain signals if you don't give local anesthesia. It also prevents the patient from waking up with pain in the operative site before you can give other types of painkillers.
Lidocaine (and capsaicin to some degree) would prevent the nerves from ever signaling -- they block the sodium channel that is necessary for nerves to fire. No firing -- no pain, *and* no no neuronal changes, and hopefully no long term pain. Lidocaine wears off after 2 hours or so, while it seems that capsaicin has much longer densitization effects.
Of note, capsaicin is also used in "pepper spray" self-defense products advertised to women in particular. I wonder if one could become numb to this after repeated sprayings. Hmmm, anybody on slashdot may be able to answer this from experience?
Slashdotter, ID #101. UIDs are in binary, right?
Pouring salt on someone's wounds is not okay but pepper is fine?
EvilCON - Made Famous by
While the drugs may give you a nice buzz, they also can have the side effect of shutting down your gastro-intestinal tract. Getting things moving again can be a real pain in the ass.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Nope, you haven't seen it before. That non-dupe is about a completely different anesthesia-related use of capsaicin. The purpose there is to enable the distribution of an anesthetic that only works from the inside into the cells.
The purpose here is to give the nerve endings such an intense blast of pain that they go numb for days or weeks. This would be horrendously agonizing to the patient, but they're already under anesthetic and so don't notice it. Then, those nerve endings being numb for a few weeks reduces the need for post-surgery narcotics.
Same drug, same general area of research (anesthetics), completely different usage.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Except if they're using medical-grade extract of capsaicin, you're talking a Scoville Rating of 100K-300K for a Habanero pepper. Nordihydrocapsaicin is 9.1 million Scovilles, and pure capsaicin is at least 15 million.
In short, I think the doctors and chemists know more than you do.
This goes along with some other unlikely firsts, eh?
"Let's eat those things from the chickens butt, but first, put them in hot water for a while."
"I bet the white liquid from the cows teet goes great with cookies, let's have a go!"
And now:
"Hmm, this guy is in serious pain...let's pour salsa in him!"
Wimp. It would be cool. Instead of writing your name in the snow,you could write it in wood or metal.
rewriting history since 2109
If a Jalapeno hurts you then you better not eat a 'hot' pepper. On the Scoville scale a Jalapeno is only about 5000 scoville units. A Cayenne is about 30,000. A Habanero is rougly 350,000. And the new record holder is the Naga Jookla at around 1,000,000. Go eat a Naga and see how you feel afterwards, wimp. :)
"As all hot pepper eaters should know, it's not the heat in the pepper, it's the juice".
.5 packet of fajita seasoning
Actually this is not true. It is the Capsicain Oil that makes a pepper hot and not the 'juice' (which I take it you mean the watery part of a pepper). The saying that 'hurts going in hurts going out' (referring to going poopy) is pretty much true. But if you eat as much pepper extract as I do it hurts when you pee as well. I admit I take it to the extreme. I use Mad Dog 357 Collector's edition sauce with a 650,000 scoville rating at least 2 or 3 days a week (all meals for those days) and often poor WAY too much in it and think to myself..what the fuck did i just do?! However, even after the wonderfull pain I end up adding even more.
1 lb of hamburger meat
1.5 packets of Ortega Taco seasoning
1 full teaspoon of Mad Dog 357 Collector's edition
Cook, eat and get ready for some insane heat and one of the most painful tinkles you ever dreamed of. =) Damn I love it HOT!!!