AP: Chili-pepperlike chemical may in future ease worst pain

Chili-pepperlike chemical may in future ease worst pain

By Lauran Neergaard
ASSOCIATED PRESS

January 17, 2006

WASHINGTON – The dog, Scooter, hopped on three legs, pain from bone cancer so bad that he wouldn't let his afflicted fourth paw touch the floor.

His owner was bracing for euthanasia when scientists offered a novel experiment: They injected a fiery sap from a Moroccan plant into Scooter's spinal column – and the dog frolicked on all fours again for several months. The chemical destroyed nerve cells that sensed pain from Scooter's cancer, not helping the tumor but apparently making him no longer really feel it.

The dramatic effect in dogs has researchers from the National Institutes of Health preparing to test the chemical in people whose pain from advanced cancer is unrelieved by even the strongest narcotics.

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Why would a substance that feels like it's burning a hole in your tongue – yes, one researcher tasted it – relieve pain, too? This fiery chemical, called resiniferatoxin, or RTX, can poison certain nerve cells that control a type of heat-related, inflammatory pain, apparently eliminating one of the body's pain-sensing systems. Yet it doesn't seem to harm other nerves that sense, say, the sharp pain from stepping on a tack.

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http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060117/news_1n17pain.html

That sounds like it would work for my kind of pain, then. I wonder when they'll start the human trials. I'll ask my specialist on Friday if he's heard about it.

My sister lives on percodans from crappy back surgery.

It sucks. Heat helps, as does stress relieving things and guided imagery, but the pain is still bad.

Back pain is one of the worst. Mine's abdominal (with other fun symptoms from the inflammation and all), which seems a bit easier to handle. Give your sister a hug and help carrying in the groceries from me. :)

It's the hot ingredient that is taken from the common ordinary chili pepper.

and works in a similar fashion, diverting the pain sensation.

But this one - injecting directly into the nerve endings - seems really radical reserved to pains that cannot be alleviated any other way.

pain gets bad. It really works once you let it. It takes about twenty or thirty minutes to kick in. There's no reason that injecting it shouldn't be tried. It's really quite safe.

Here, take these pills...you'll feel a lot better.