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capsaicin Capsaicin stops itching!

D

dragon49

Capsaicin has many beneficial uses. I have an insect bite on my arm that was itching. I rubbed some Bhut Jolokia Puree on the bite and it no longer itches!

I should give a shout out to the puree vendor:

https://www.cajohns.com/
 
yes capsaicin is very good for you and helps prevent prostate cancer, but I'll be damned if I let my doctor swab my prostate with a scorpion pepper. Ha!
 
Lol to both replies.

I don't know if the capsaicin if shutting off the nerves so I don't feel the itch, or maybe it simply physically burned off the part that itched -- BUT it worked as I am no longer itching. I'm shortly off to sleep. I'm going to put a Band Aid over the puree so it will remain affixed to the area to continue to provide relief. I don't want to wake up in the middle of the night itching.

Tex16 said:
Damn ! I bet it does take the itch away but in exchange for a gacho bad burn sensation.
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It is not burning at all.
 
Update:

Twenty minutes after the last post, my arm started to burn a little. I took the Band Aid off and washed off the puree. The burning stopped, but the itching did not resume. This morning I noticed that the bite mark had shrunk considerably.
 
My GUESS would be that this is because of gate control theory. Gate control theory in medicine is that your nerves can only transmit so much data to the brain. Thus why music or massage can help with pain control. Your nerves are so busy sending the sensory data from the other sensation that it essentially blocks the transmission of pain impulses. It could be something different - some chemical reaction neutralizing the toxin from the bug bite or something - but gate control theory sounds like the best answer to me. Wildseed57, do you have any data or studies to support prostate cancer prevention? I'd be interested to see that.
 
There was a post that had a link to support the prostate cancer info I believe it was on the HP22b Carolina reaper thread although I can't say exactly where on that thread, sorry about that. I read some where it was also used by the Chinese as a Anastasia to lessen the pain when the Chinese castrated people, where I read that is lost to time, space and old age. The Cancer part should be found easily enough by doing a search on the net.
 
badger126 said:
Great info, thanks! Looks like I was wrong, but I don't mind- that's really cool that capsaicin can do that!
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I wouldn't necessarily say that you were wrong, there could be more than one factor at play here.

On a side note, I am wondering if this explains what my wife and I noticed this summer. We had a serious mosquito problem this year. On a daily basis my wife would come in from the field and be absolutely covered in bites, to the point that she was covering herself in Cortizone just to keep from ripping her skin off. I would spend twice as much time outside, and I would find myself covered in mosquitoes bites. The difference would be that after 20 minutes any swelling or itching would go away on me, but my wife's bites would experience swelling and itching for several days.

My wife was convinced the levels of capsaicin in my blood prevented the mosquitoes from taking alot of blood from me and therefore not causing a severe reaction. I thought maybe I had just developed a natural immunity to them. But know I guess the science says that the capsaicin blocked part of the histamine reaction. I guess now she will stop nagging me about putting ghost powder on everything I eat!
 
Going back to what badger originally said, when my fiancée gets back ache I push my thumb into the inside of her elbow and push her forearm - pain gone!

I studied pressure points doing ninjutsu. You can strike someone in the chest and they feel pain in their legs.
Similarly, you hit the right nerve and pain in I.e their back, goes away. The human nervous system is very complex!
 
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