Chilli powder: a cure for pain

The thing that makes the dentist's drill bearable is local anaesthetics. Local anaesthetics work rather haphazardly; they block not only pain channels but all the message channels in your nerve cells. The result is a loss of all sensation and temporary paralysis in the affected area; thus, the drooling.

But there are more serious problems with local anaesthetics. Take, for example, the epidural, a common childbirth procedure in which an anaesthetic is injected directly into the mother's spine. The process ameliorates the pain of childbirth, but leaves the mother's body unable to push out the baby.

It was reported in Nature that capsaicin, the active ingredient in chili peppers, has the ability to specifically activate pain channels in nerve cells and leave all other channels alone. When capsaicin is injected along with a local anaesthetic, pain channels can be targeted by the capsaicin and closed by the anaesthetic, allowing pain sensation to be blocked without loss of other sensations and without paralysis. Since the anaesthetic and capsaicin are already approved for the drug market, use of capsaicin in pain therapy is expected to be available soon. link