We have always known that pain management studies designed for finding alternative and much better means of treating and managing pain. Present-day anesthesia and pain medications are loaded with undesirable unwanted side effects. The usage of anesthesia in surgeries is undoubtedly effective. However, overcoming post-operative pain, discomfort, and risks that arise in the effects of anesthesia is pretty difficult. Pain medications also offer a lot of dangers, risks, and unwanted side effects linked to them. These are the logic behind why researchers are continuously seeking safer and less inconvenient strategies for easing pain. Some have resorted to different ways like meditation, distraction, and relaxation. All these help in reducing pain however they are not efficient in numbing pain. Leaving no stone unturned, there are current studies on a possible alternative to anesthetics and pain medication – hot chili peppers!
Have you ever munched on the hot chili pepper and couldn’t feel your tongue which also felt want it grew to twice its size? The numbness and loss in the sensation that people get from eating a hot chili pepper is the same numbness and loss of sensation that anesthetics and pain killers give us. In hot chili peppers, it is brought on by capsaicin. Capsaicin is generally the “hot” in hot chili peppers. Being an all-natural anesthetic, expect hardly any to no negative effects from capsaicin.
Researchers combined capsaicin with lidocaine, a principal ingredient in localized anesthetics, to produce a new anesthetic that numbs or removes sensation without paralyzing our bodies or without affecting movement or control. This brings us to the hot-chili-pepper-numbed tongue which you could still move though it felt like the tongue wasn’t there in any way. By retaining movement and control, a patient should be able to stay awake and alert and risks involved in blocking nerve endings linked to movement will likely be avoided.
What advantages can hot chili peppers give than to modern surgery? Applying the selective numbing concept of the recent chili pepper on the body of a human, the hot chili pepper anesthetic will selectively numb just those nerve cells which supply the sensation of pain. Other nerve cells like those which are responsible for motion will likely be spared from the outcomes of the anesthetic. This ensures that the anesthetized part is not paralyzed during surgery. Because of the localized approach, the sufferer may also remain conscious. All these will surely end postoperative nausea, pain along with other unwanted effects and may remove risks caused by paralysis.
Finally, there will probably be ways to block pain without losing muscle control. This type of anesthetic is sure to add ease to the pains of childbirth. By not impeding muscle control, women in childbirth can have normal deliveries without needing to experience much pain.
Persons who are suffering from chronic pain may benefit at the same time and doors to new possibilities are going to be opened like the continuing development of hot chili pepper-based topical anesthetics and prescription drugs.