Has anyone had a reaction, good or bad, to capsaicin in their diet? Does it aggravate PN symptoms? I am thinking in particular of food items like tabasco sauce.

Thanks!

Hey Nervous, Capsaicin is an ingredient in chili peppers and has interactions with a lot or things to include many vitamins and menerials check out this site. http://www.drugs.com/drug-interactio...n-topical.html

Hope this helps!

Capsaicin I know of as a cream and you better go very very easy with it because it burns

Serendipity! I was just thinking about this, so I searched and found this thread...

YES. I tried some hot sauce on my chicken last week (which I hadn't done in quite some time) and for several hours afterward, my feet burned as bad/worse than before I stopped the burning with R-Lipoic Acid.

It didn't occur to me until the next day, so I waited a week and tried it again - same result.

The good news is that it was only temporary ~8 hrs, then dissipated. Gone the next day.

I've had nightshades from time to time with no reaction, so I'm pegging this to the capsaicin in the hot sauce (doggonit - I really like hot sauce! )

Doc

^^My incident might have been a one-off or unrelated to capsaicin. I have tabasco sauce with my breakfast every morning without trouble.

So, I don't know.

I get burning feet from "hot" things. This includes the hot radish in Thai cooking, hot sauces in American food, and now curry does it to me.

Also GI wise I cannot eat green chili peppers at all anymore.

Also MSG will set off burning for me.

I think capsaicin is not for everyone. And you may change with age too, and become intolerant later.

I've been eating pepper jack cheese the past couple weeks with no problems. That made me pick up the hot sauce and read the label again. Cayenne pepper & vinegar. The pepper jack cheese has jalapenos.
Been eating dill pickles without consequence too.

Ok, I'm flummoxed.

Doc

Earlier on in my symptoms of this horrible, dreaded neuropathy, I used capsaicin (Zostrix 0.075%). At that time, I was not experiencing burning, only pain in my feet and the severe deep and stabbing pins and needles in both legs and both arms and ramdomly in my torso. I used it because its one of the medicines that is always mentioned in most sites I visited while researching on treatments for neuropathy.

After the initial application, it gave me a burning sensation in my arms and legs. It was very bad that I had to take a shower at the middle of night (it was winter so I had to use the warm shower). I did not know that the warm shower will aggravate the burning!!! Though, the label says that burning will occur during the first applications, I did not expect to be THAT BAD.
The good thing about it, (if you can consider it as "good"), the burning masks the lancinating pain in my skin. I continued using it for a month because the severity of the burning reduces as I applied it regularly. I can tolerate the burning, but not the deep stabbing in my skin (well, with all the dreadful symptoms of the neuropathy, we, PNers learns - sort of - which symptoms are "tolerable" than others). The sensation of "sandpaper" rubbing my skin makes me nuts, !

After a month, the burning continues in my skin even if I was not using the capsaicin. And even when I applied, the "sandpaper" sensation remains.

Maybe capsaicin works for others, but not for me.