Hot peppers can make your salsa spicy and your chili fiery. Now it appears they may also ease the pain of a debilitating nerve condition.
Dr. Misha Backonja, UW-Madison associate professor of neurology, said capsaicin, the ingredient that gives chili peppers their fire, can quiet the nerves that transmit certain pain impulses. Backonja is testing a new capsaicin patch that delivers results without the messy side effects of current capsaicin gels and creams.
Backonja tested the patch on patients who had post-herpetic neuralgia, or PHN, a painful nerve disorder that affects up to 50 percent of elderly patients who develop shingles.
\The results were dramatic,"" Backonja said. ""Patients would obtain pain relief for up to four weeks. When we followed up with them up to 12 weeks later, some still had the same degree of pain relief.""
Shingles is an infection caused by the same virus that causes chicken pox.
""Once a person gets chicken pox, the virus lies dormant in nerve roots,"" said UW Hospital dermatologist Apple Bodemer. ""When there's a decrease in the immune system, like in the elderly or someone with cancer, that can trigger shingles.""
Even when patients recover from shingles, they may still have PHN, which causes some nerves to transmit needless pain impulses. Doctors have known for 20 years that capsaicin could silence those overactive pain nerves, but the treatment was challenging.
""They used capsaicin gels and applied it to large areas, but it would get all over-on clothes, bedding-and had to be applied every day,"" said Joanne Lubich, registered nurse at the Office of Clinical Trials where Backonja conducted his research. ""And it can really hurt when you get it in your eyes, your mouth, your mucous membranes. The patch- you only need to use it once.""
Backonja said it's unclear how capsaicin eases pain. The capsaicin doesn't enter the bloodstream, so he theorizes it works directly on the nerves to which it is applied.
He said a person could get the same effects directly from hot peppers. One patient with PHN even got relief by applying Taco Bell hot sauce to his sites of pain.
""If you want the good stuff, go to New Mexico or Arizona,"" Backonja said. ""Not jalapenos-get a habanero. That stuff's loaded with capsaicin.\
