Capsaicin is the active substance in cayenne peppers, used as food and medicine by Native American Indians for almost 9,000 years. Capsaicin gives the peppers their spicy taste and may have medicinal properties, including pain relief. There are tests under way for a variety of conditions including cluster headaches. However, there is still insufficient evidence to support capsaicin for any medicinal use. Consult your doctor before using capsaicin medicinally.
Treatment
Cluster headaches are extremely painful. They usually cause pain on one side of the head and happen in clusters or groups of several headaches in a short time. Symptoms include pain in your eye or upper face, tearing, runny nose and sweating on your face. Self-care activities that may give relief include identifying food sensitivities that may be triggers for your cluster headaches, avoiding alcohol, and taking supplements such as capsaicin.
How It Works
Capsaicin works to relieve pain by affecting your peripheral nerves. These nerves send information from your skin to your spinal cord and brain, causing you to feel pain or other sensations. Capsaicin interferes with the transmission of pain signals by temporarily depleting a chemical called substance P, found in nerves that send pain signals and may cause some cluster headache symptoms.
Preparations and Dosage
Capsaicin sprays into the nose to help relieve cluster headaches. This form of capsaicin, administered by a doctor, can cause burning or irritation. Test subjects received capsaicin in the nose, or intranasally, twice a day for seven days in studies of cluster headache.
Effectiveness
Preliminary studies have supported the effectiveness of capsaicin for relieving cluster headaches in some people. A study published in "Pain" in 1994 demonstrated that capsaicin decreased the number of cluster headache episodes for up to 40 days. Another study published in "Cephalalgia" in 1993 showed that, when people who were experiencing a cluster headache received capsaicin, it significantly lowered the amount of pain for 15 days following the treatment.
References
- University of Maryland Medical Center: Cayenne
- Palo Alto Medical Foundation: Cluster Headache
- Palo Alto Medical Foundation: Cayenne
- "Pain"; Preventative Effect of Repeated Nasal Applications of Capsaicin in Cluster Headache; BM Fusco, et al.; December 1994
- "Cephalalgia"; A Duble-blind Placebo-controlled Trial of Intranasal Capsaicin for Cluster Headache; D R Marks, et al.; April 1993
