A chemical so hot it destroys nerve endings – in a good way
wired.com
wired.com
> “With a friend, we put one drop of a very dilute solution”—he pointed to the tip of his tongue—“and then immediately rinsed it off. At the point where we put it, I couldn’t feel anything for a week.”
To anyone with the same bad idea as me, the answer is no, we don't want to eat these.
[0] https://www.cooksillustrated.com/science/783-articles/featur...
We already use capsaicin patches. So hey.
However, I can see how this could be misused. People could put themselves at risk for serious injury, in order to get back to work sooner. It's rather the norm for professional athletes, sadly enough. And for many others who do manual labor.
So in such circumstances, it could be horrible. But for those with chronic pain, perhaps a blessing.
Sadly, I see some office workers surrounding me who would happily recieve a shot of permanent painkiller for their backs, necks and wrists to continue their 60+ hour work week race toward promotion, bonuses, reputation and other carrots.
TFA made me think of her, wonder if this also might work against phantom limb pains.
Many patients with diseases such as CRPS (one of the worst pain wise) would be able to kill the pain signal allowing them to rehabilitate the affected area. Hopefully by the time the nerve function returns their body will have been able to battle the affected area into remission and avoid atrophy.
Killing nerve tissue can backfire when neurons higher up start compensating for the lack of signal from neurons below (1). The result can be more painful and harder to treat.
The randomized controlled experiment with dogs was for bone cancer and the treatment appears to increase days until euthanasia about 60% (2). That's a real benefit, but not related to runner's knee, which is often related to the ITB band. For possible treatments, see (3)
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb
3. https://www.runnersworld.com/advanced/a20844564/treating-itb...
[1]TRPV1 also detects high acidity and the endocannabinoid anandamide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRPV1
PS: Your links [1] and [2] are identical... mistake?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale
the problem is that we don't have a physiological basis for "spiciness" in order to create a more objective scale. Instead, we rely on subjective taste tests to get those numbers, and mitigate the subjectivity by having multiple taste testers.
I'm actually thinking about applying a similar process to a few image analysis problems at work that are (currently) necessarily subjective, in order to produce better data for the eventual ML algorithms.
Somehow, I do not see this ending well. As attractive as eliminating pain may be, the fact is we need a sense of pain.
A knee that cannot communicate pain lacks the feedback needed to prevent further damage.
I'm curious as to whether or not there could be applications for people with spinal cord injuries
The article addresses this:
“Now, the thing with pain is, it evolved for a reason. It’s an indispensable tool for you to feel if you’re doing something to your body that you shouldn’t be, like holding a scalding cup of coffee. Of course we want to alleviate pain, but might that be problematic if it’s too effective?
For people with knee pain, not really—the injection is targeting a specific area, so the rest of your body can still feel pain. And for end-of-life care, a central injection can bring long-awaited relief.“
(disturbing, because I could lose the damn thing and not know, or not know how bad it is)
Elsewhere, it said that this specifically activates temperature sensitive sensory neurons leaving others (touch, for example) unaffected.
What I wonder about is choice. You've expressed yours, and it's solid. Others may well make other choices.
Will they be able to, or are we headed toward a new paradigm, where it's "just fixed, you can go" as opposed to management, options?
Then again, perhaps most people don't care.
I had skimmed this, found it thought provoking. Missed where there is nerve recovery. I do know, from some personal experiences, nerve regrowth, if it happens and it doesn't always happen, is sloooow.
Looks like there is recovery, meaning it's not permanent. I feel a whole lot better about that.
Where I struggle to understand your perspective is here:
> Will they be able to, or are we headed toward a new paradigm, where it's "just fixed, you can go" as opposed to management, options?
As a society right now we are way tipped on the scale toward not giving choice by denying access as opposed to forcing access, so the concern that we'd be forced into relief seems the opposite of my concern (that we will be denied relief).
Doctors are getting really stingy with many medications (because of DEA threats (and in some cases actions) to throw them in prison if their patient does something wrong with them, or even if they are just statistically writing more than other doctors). Try going to get some Xanax, or Adderall, or Percocet. Good luck! If you've had it before it's easier, but new patients you can basically forget about it without a hard diagnosis (which they will happily take tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and still not provide, because again doctors are terrified of mis-diagnosis and getting sued or treated as a criminal, so they will only do it if there is hard indisputable evidence, which is infrequently the case).
When there are always potential issues.
The US perspective on this stuff is terrible. Frankly, the state of health care, markets, all the BS?
Wish I were not living here. No joke. I've already had take serious financial hits --twice, for people I love.
> “The animals went from basically limping to running around.” One dog even went 18 months before its owners noticed the pain had returned.
So the nerves must repair themselves over time which is great.
It may be psychosomatic, but the benefits to her seem to have been huge, for an incredibly low cost and risk.
Is it the quantity of chilli peppers that are eaten that is important on the heat of the pepper? So 4 weak chillis is the same as eating one very spicy pepper?
Some meals she'll sprinkle them on, some she'll just eat before or after her meal. She's not a massive fan of spicy foods but the benefits mean that she's carried on with this. I think she read it in an article a year or so before she started - and then ended up with some chillies in the fridge and decided to eat them before they went bad and found a positive impact pretty quickly.
As I say, might all be psychosomatic, but she's happy ;)
Inject RTX, as it’s known, into an aching joint, and
it’ll actually destroy the nerve endings that signal
pain. Which means medicine could soon get a new tool
to help free us from the grasp of opioids.
Using a toxic capsaicin analog to destroy nerve endings sounds like an option (when taking to the inevitable extremes we are all dreading here), which could actually be worse than simply locking someone in a room so that they don't harm themselves or others with a different substance.
Reading this sounds like something out of a Shadowrun supplement, describing an intentionally horrifying prerequisite to some kind of cybernetic augmentation that renders your character a partially comatose brain in a vat.