
A chemical so hot it destroys nerve endings – in a good way - jdnier
https://www.wired.com/story/resiniferatoxin/
======
mabbo
Naturally I wanted to know if anyone had tried cooking with or eating this
super spicy compound. I found this [0]:

> “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...](https://www.cooksillustrated.com/science/783-articles/feature/hurts-
so-good)

~~~
zenexer
For anyone else reading this, the link cited above contains a wealth of
technical and practical information about peppers and related flavors, and it
even delves into the psychological aspects of spiciness. It’s a great read.

~~~
mabbo
Seriously, I went looking for that one thing and almost forgot about it
reading through the article! Fantastic read.

------
mirimir
This sounds wonderful for chronic pain. Reportedly, only pain neurons are
affected. And for joints and other relatively isolated sites, effects can be
targeted. So yes, your knee doesn't hurt, and you could injure it worse
without the pain feedback. But you'd have ~normal pain sensation elsewhere.

We already use capsaicin patches. So hey.

~~~
dev_dull
Definitely not without side effects. Loss of pain sensation in parts of the
body (such as the knee) can be really scary and potentially lead to permanent
damage if the pain feedback loop doesn’t report that it’s being twisted or
stressed.

~~~
mirimir
True. But this is for chronic pain. Especially for pain that's caused by
damage that's not expected to heal. So if you have constant knee pain, so bad
that you can't stand up, the risk of further knee damage is arguably not such
a major issue.

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.

~~~
Jaruzel
You could of course pair this with a knee brace to prevent doing _further_
damage to the area.

~~~
pgrote
I don't think it'll be used for ligament injuries like MCL/ACL issues where a
brace helps, but for chronic issues like osteoarthritis where the cartilage is
low or gone. The bone on bone pain is constant and the only long term solution
is knee replacement.

------
dunewalker547
My mother in law has been ridden with excrutiating phantom limb pains after
being forced to amputate her left arm above her elbow due to injuries she
suffered in a car accident a few years ago. Has tried everything from mirror
boxes to cannabis as well as a myriad of different medicinal treatments, none
having any appreciable effect.

TFA made me think of her, wonder if this also might work against phantom limb
pains.

------
mnemotronic
My wife really needs this. Morton's neuroma, botched endometriosis surgery,
and fibromyalgia. I don't know about the FM - that's so global I think it
would be hard to target a specific nerve ending.

~~~
codycraven
This truly sounds like it could be a fantastic tool for treating neuropathies.

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.

------
NPMaxwell
This treatment kills only temperature sensors, so I'm guessing it would only
help with a "burning sensation".

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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb)

2\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_limb)

3\. [https://www.runnersworld.com/advanced/a20844564/treating-
itb...](https://www.runnersworld.com/advanced/a20844564/treating-itbs/)

~~~
Real_S
The TRPV1 receptor is present on sensory nerves, so although it does primarily
detect high temperature[1], regulating it can result in pain relief in
general, not just a reduction in "burning sensations." Also, the article
simplifies the rather complicated molecular biology, much of which is still
being worked out. Importantly the article does not discuss killing nerves,
just their nerve endings.

[1]TRPV1 also detects high acidity and the endocannabinoid anandamide.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRPV1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRPV1)

PS: Your links [1] and [2] are identical... mistake?

~~~
NPMaxwell
Thanks! Both for the clarification and noting the mistake. Here's the original
article: (2)
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4431903/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4431903/)

~~~
Real_S
Interesting... so it looks like RTX can cause cell death. Perhaps this
shouldn't be surprising. Glad you updated that link.

------
emmelaich
Time to retire the Scoville index. Anything with that range is next to useless
as a real measure.

~~~
headcanon
You gotta understand how it works though - basically, it works by diluting a
pepper seed concentrate as many times as necessary until every member of a
panel of 5 testers can no longer taste a hint of spiciness.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale](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.

~~~
emmelaich
What's the error bar on that I wonder.

~~~
animal531
In secondary link in the top comments they say that it can now be measured
mechanically (they mention only capsaicin though, so I'm not sure if it works
for the other types).

------
leemailll
Nerve damage or loss leads to muscle atrophy. Also, nerve regeneration is
still unresolved.

~~~
mirimir
That's about motor nerves. This is about pain nerves.

------
GordonS
Capsaicin works topically, so I would presume this does too. Have any
individuals actually tried this?

------
ddingus
Is this permanent?

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.

~~~
intralizee
Pain feedback equating to null would be a win for me. I prefer life requiring
heightened awareness than constant pain. Some people don't realize that
consistent psychological or physical pain is like living with a cold for your
whole life. Every day you think of how ungrateful you were when you could
breathe freely. Also if this dramatically decreased life expectancy by the
increased danger from lack of feedback.. it still seems like a win with how
shit life is when in pain till you die.

~~~
ddingus
Totally fair.

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.

~~~
freedomben
It seems like we both agree that people should be free to make their own
choice.

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).

~~~
ddingus
Yeah, exactly. Your last paragraph is my concern. "Let's just burn the pain
out of them" = no issues.

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.

------
rubenhak
That’s an interesting apporoach. Maybe next time I have lower-back pain, I’d
wrap habanero peppers around my back.

~~~
ljf
My mother has been eating large amounts of of hot fresh chillies with every
meal for the last decade and has noted a huge improvement in her arthritis
pain, to the point where if she travels and forgets to take chillies with her,
the pain seems to return swiftly.

It may be psychosomatic, but the benefits to her seem to have been huge, for
an incredibly low cost and risk.

~~~
senorjazz
What is a large amount?

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?

~~~
jsjohnst
Bit anecdotal, but if I eat a tablespoon of Pepper X with other food, I do
feel a general numbing of pain for a while after.

~~~
learc83
Very spicy foods cause you to release endorphins.

------
rezz
For how often front-end development is shat on you’d think something as
trivial as adding the ability for a user to close a registration dialog would
be child’s work.

~~~
zeroname
works on my machine™

------
insideYourMind

      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.
    

You know, I appreciate that someone out there is trying to address an
addiction crisis more deadly than HIV, particularly because HIV can also
compound the crisis through injection use, but...

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.

~~~
topmonk
RTFA. The nerves eventually recover. They've tried it with dogs with joint
problems and after about 5 months they need to be re-injected.

