Looking for something to relieve your aches and pains? Look no further than your spice rack in the kitchen.Cayenne is the hot (literally) alternative to pain relief.

Cayenne contains a compound called capsaicin, which provides hot, mouthwatering (or mouth-burning depending on your taste buds) flavor and purported health benefits. In fact, capsaicin cream is sold as a nonprescription medication for the relief of nerve pain. It seems to work by reducing a chemical involved in transmitting pain signals to the brain.

Healthy Uses for Cayenne

Medical research suggests that cayenne may have the following health-promoting abilities:

• Relieving pain, such as pain from arthritis, post herpetic neuralgia (a late complication of shingles), back pain, diabetic neuropathy, and nerve pain following surgery.
• Psoriasis
• Reducing discomfort of minor digestion (oral use)

However, the most convincing evidence refers only to external use of cayenne for pain relief. If you have a chronic or serious medical condition, you should not simply self-medicate with cayenne.

How Much Do I Need and What

Kind Do I Take?

To treat localized painful conditions, try applying capsaicin cream (0.025-0.075 percent capsaicin) to painful areas four times daily. Do not apply the cream to the same location for more than 2 to 3 days at a time, to avoid excessive irritation of sensitive nerves.

Precautions When

Using Cayenne Medicinally

If capsaicin cream or cayenne irritates your skin or      stomach, stop taking it. Do not apply cayenne or     capsaicin cream to broken or irritated skin, or mucous  membranes.

Capsaicin cream may increase the risk of cough in   people taking blood pressure medications called ACE inhibitors.

Cayenne is spicy and can therefore cause irritation of the skin, eyes, and stomach (though it does not worsen duodenal ulcers). Wash your hands after handling cayenne or capsaicin to avoid getting it in your eyes.

If cayenne irritates your skin or stomach, stop taking it. Although cayenne and capsaicin are considered safe for use during pregnancy, check with your healthcare provider if you intend to use them medicinally during pregnancy or breastfeeding.

In the  East it is the main ingredient of every day dishes.

RESOURCES:

American Botanical Council
hulcersttp://www.herbalgram.org

American Herbal Products Association
http://www.ahpa.org

CANADIAN RESOURCES:

Pain Health Info
http://pain.health-info.org

The Arthritis Society
http://www.arthritis.ca

Came across this TED video on Facebook sometime back. I think she’s still in a bit of a daze after her unfortunate event since she seems to be acting a bit strange! But whatever she might have felt during the stroke sure seems like a dream.

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor shares her stroke experience

As you can see, she’s talking about a blending in with everything, since her brain lost the capacity to recognize the limits of her body. You get to hear people talk about out-of-body experiences and spiritual people attaining Nirvana by controlling their minds to blend in with everything, and lose their selves. Experiencing that could be an interesting experience, but I have something else on my mind…

When you drive your car, you somewhat know what the outer physical limits of your car are, and you can tell whether it can pass through a narrow alley come around the corner. My question is: does your car become an extension of your body when you take control of it? It’s not like holding your pen, since you can actually see the tip of your pen in front of your eyes, and thus can position it correctly on the paper. But the sides of your car you cannot see.

Try it out today; see how you “feel” when you sit in the drivers seat of your car. I guess it would not be safe to attain Nirvana while you’re driving down the Motorway at 120 km/h.

By Suhail Yusuf for Dawn.com

A Pakistani scholar has devised a non-invasive way to sense brain pressure which could significantly change the current paradigm of neurological care of those suffering from brain injury or disease.

Monitoring intracranial pressure (ICP) is the most important thing to assess brain injury, hemorrhage (internal blood flow), tumors and other neurological problems. But current methods to measure this pressure are highly invasive – requiring a neurosurgeon to drill a hole in the skull to place a pressure sensor or catheter inside the brain – and are thus restricted to the very severe cases.

Pakistani scientist, Faisal Kashif has devised a non-invasive technology for ICP monitoring in his PhD thesis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US. The method is based on processing available clinical signals using a mathematical model of relevant physiology. It provides real time estimates of ICP and cerebrovascular impedance, the latter is an indicator of brain’s ability to maintain its blood supply.

“ICP is a key neurological vital sign and is affected in several brain pathologies – even in concussions and migranes – and this non-invasive method could help in monitoring a vastly larger pool of patients,” said Kashif. He further added that unlike the invasive approaches which require a neurosurgical facility, the non-invasive method can also be applied in emergency-care settings where most trauma patients are first brought. Having access to ICP in a timely manner can guide doctors to provide life-saving interventions.

The initial validation studies show that the new method is equally precise as compared to other painful surgery based procedures. Now Kashif and his colleagues are setting up their prototype device for real time monitoring by the doctors, and to run relevant clinical trials. He is also hopeful that the device could be easily developed in Pakistan as well.

The Helen Carr Peake research prize

In April this year, Dr. Faisal Kashif won MIT’s Helen Carr Peake research prize for his doctoral thesis contributions to the field of bioengineering. He has also presented his findings at two major international conferences, American Heart Association’s Stroke 2010 in US, and ICP 2010 in Germany.

His research work was also declared as “Most Innovative Research” at the Innovation Congress 2009, Boston, US. In 2000, he was awarded two Gold Medals at Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Technology (GIKI) and won four years HEC’s overseas scholarships as he was accepted for the doctorate program at MIT, though he only partially used these funds as support became available from MIT’s research, teaching and a medical engineering fellowship, which he was awarded for his proposed research.

A Thesis dedicated to Pakistan

His doctoral thesis entitled “Modeling and estimation for non-invasive monitoring of intracranial pressure and cerebrovascular autoregulation” was a milestone in Kashif’s career. Four years ago, in his Masters thesis, he developed a method for efficient communication through a nonlinear channel, such as the one encountered in satellite and optical fiber links. He dedicated this thesis to his parents and to all the martyrs of independence, which shows his dedication to Pakistan.

“I am proud to be a Pakistani because I know the reasons for its creation. I am very happy to associate my honours to the ideology behind it. I want to do a lot more Insha-Allah, and contribute in all ways I can,” he told to Dawn.com.

Filed under: Pakistan, Pakistanis Tagged: Brain, Brain Injury Treatment, Dr Faisal Kashif, Faisal Kashif, Fellowship, Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Technology, GIKI, Helen Carr Peake Research Prize, ICP, Intracranial Pressure, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, Neurological, Neurology, Pakistan, Pakistani Doctor, Pakistanis