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DrG's Medisense Feature Article
19061-Capsaicin
Capsaicin, the Un-American,
Natural, Pain-Relief Cream
by Ann Gerhardt, MD
June 2019
Print Version
Bottom line at the top: Use
capsaicin cream CORRECTLY to alleviate muscle, joint and mild
neuropathic pain, while avoiding the side effects of oral medication.
Here’s how humans generally approach medication – Take it
only as long as a discomfort requires it and expect it to cure almost
immediately. That especially applies to pain relievers, since
happiness and productivity suffer along with you until the pain is
gone. Many people also believe that ‘natural’
remedies are better than prescription medications.
Capsaicin (the ‘hot’ in chili peppers), salicylic acid
(aspirin) and opium are ‘natural’ pain relievers.
Only opiates satisfy the ‘immediate’ criterion, but incur
potential addictive, social and legal side effects. Aspirin,
viewed by many as too blasé for their pain, has less potency,
slightly slower onset and the not-so-painless risk of kidney failure
and bleeding ulcer.
The tongue and any human tissues that capsaicin touches feel burned,
making it a great bear-repellant and self-defense pepper-spray.
As such, it’s counter-intuitive that
capsaicin cream could be a good pain remedy. But it is... if used
correctly.
At extremely low concentrations, a 0.025% or 0.1% capsaicin cream
relieves minor musculoskeletal pain from arthritis, muscle injury and
sprains. Higher doses may help various neuropathies.
It works by first stimulating, then inactivating sensory pain
nerves’ ability to perceive pain. An internet search tells
us that it depletes pain-inducing Substance P, but that is not the
primary mechanism by which capsaicin works.
Here’s where capsaicin defies
the human requirement for immediate benefit and the all-American maxim
of ‘more is better.’ It requires repeated, low
doses over a relatively long time to alleviate pain.
This just makes sense, when we consider people who love and don’t
even register the burn of the hottest Carolina Reaper or ghost
peppers. Their lifetime of eating hot chili peppers shuts down
oral pain nerves. On the other hand, my uninitiated grandson will
scream and swear he’s dying from three bites of his first
moderately spicy pizza.
Even at low concentration, too much capsaicin cream reddens and
blisters skin. This is not due to direct toxic injury, but rather
the body’s inflammatory response to an injury the brain assumes
we have because nerves tell it they feel pain. Once we blame the cream
for painful blisters, only masochists would continue to use it. A
medication not taken doesn’t have a chance of working.
With a little patience it’s
possible to achieve sustained pain relief. Used three
times daily for about two weeks should work. After that once or
twice daily application will sustain the effect.
Be careful, though: Use gloves so your eyes don’t burn
later when you touch them. Apply an
almost invisibly thin smear over the
painful area daily. Apply only to unbroken skin.
The cream might also help the pain of diabetic or HIV neuropathy and
post-herpetic (shingles) neuralgia. If not, relieving those pains
might take a prescription patch with a specialized delivery system,
which must be applied by a healthcare professional.