A 'hot' new home remedy for pain

OK, so maybe not. But it is good to know that if I ever endure an injury warranting this, am miles away from a hospital, and have some hot sauce, that I can pull a medical MacGyver.

Brought to you by the letters "AP" and the Baltimore Sun:
"[...] Chili peppers have been part of folk remedy for centuries, and heat-inducing capsaicin creams are a drugstore staple for aching muscles.

But today the spice is hot because of research showing that capsaicin targets key pain-sensing cells in a unique way. California-based Anesiva Inc.'s operating-room experiments aren't the only attempt to harness that burn for more focused pain relief.

Harvard University researchers are mixing capsaicin with another anesthetic in hopes of developing epidurals that wouldn't confine women to bed during childbirth, or dental injections that don't numb the whole mouth.

And at the National Institutes of Health, scientists hope early next year to begin testing in advanced cancer patients a capsaicin cousin that is 1,000 times more potent, to see whether it can overcome their intractable pain. [...]"