Red Hot Chili Peppers Are Main Ingredient for Pain Relief

Rub red hot chili peppers on your skin to relieve pain? This doesn't seem like a very sensible thing to do. The active component of chili peppers—capsaicin—is an irritant and can cause the skin to burn. What a lot of people don't know is that it’s also the main ingredient in a topical cream or ointment (Zostrix and generic equivalents), available over-the-counter. It can be highly effective for the nerve pain caused by diabetes or shingles, joint pain, and muscle pain. It is thought to work by decreasing the amount of a certain substance that transmits pain in the body.

Reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD), also known as complex regional pain syndrome type I (CRPS I), is a challenge to healthcare practitioners. Several treatments have been used with some degree of success; however, there is still no consensus on how to treat this complicated and painful condition.

A case study published in June of 2001 described the impressive results in a 26-year-old man whose RSD was treated with topical capsaicin .075 percent. The patient was run over by a fork-lift truck. He incurred many injuries, including crush fractures of the left arm and a complicated fracture of the lower left leg. The left arm had to be amputated above the elbow. In spite of putting "pins" into the broken leg, it still hadn't healed after several months. They did surgery on the leg, which resulted in good healing. Unfortunately, however, RSD developed in the area. Capsaicin applied twice daily for six weeks resulted in the leg returning to normal.

Although the authors realize that clinical trials describing this treatment for RSD need to be done on a larger scale, studies have already proven the effectiveness of capsaicin in treating nerve pain from diabetes and shingles. Capsaicin is also being tested as treatment for certain types of cancer.

For further information, refer to: "Complex Regional Pain Syndrome Type I Treated with Topical Capsaicin: A Case Report;" Ribbers, G MD; Stam, H MD PhD; Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, June 2001,    
Volume 82, Issue 6.