Got a cut? Put on some Pepper!

[dmccarty]

I KNOW this sounds wierd but it works.

A few weeks ago I was listening/or reading the Peoples Pharmacy
and saw/heard about putting pepper on cuts to stop bleeding.

Here is an article on the Peoples Pharmacy website....
Black Pepper For Cuts

This stuck in my head for some reason and was forgotten. I wanted
to get a can of pepper to put in the truck in case I cut myself while
working the property but I had forgotten to do this.

Fast forward or in this case back to Monday of this week. My wife
wakes me up, I had gone to bed early, and tells me she needs help,
she had cut her hand. I've been working 12+ hour days this week
starting at 0500 some I'm not really happy or awake at this point.
/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

What did you do ask I? I see she is holding her thumb in a paper
tell so it can't be good. We walk out to the kitchen and I see a
chunk of cheese and one of our VERY VERY VERY sharp paring
knives. I'm not happy. She was slicing the cheese, HA! you thought
I was going to say "cutting" didn't you! HA! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif I have gotten
on her about this in the past that she was going to cut herself. And
bad if she keep s l i c i n g the cheese without using a cutting
board. Heck we have three boards so one is always clean. Well she
was cutting mold off the cheese. Sharp side towards her hand and guess
what? The knife slipped out of the cheese and sliced the knuckle on
her thumb.

She is bleeding pretty good and somehow I remembered the pepper.
So I grab some pepper and throw it on the cut. The bleeding stopped.
And I do mean stopped. It was like a light switch being turned off.
Wow said I. She was shaking so I set her down on a chair and went
to get a band aid. I looked at her thumb and just put on the band aid.
She was a bit shocky so I gave her a ipuproffin(sp) and sent her to bed.

The next day she got up and went to a Doc In The Box to have the cut
looked at. The nurses thought she was out of her mind when they took
off the bandage and saw all the black stuff. They thought it was blood
and when they found out it was pepper I think they where about to call
the Wacky Waggon. As they cleanuped the wound they said she did not
need stiches, everything was healing nicely....

I get home that not and looked at the thumb. I really did not notice,
because of all the blood, how bad the cut was. She almost cut all the
skin off of her thumb knuckle. Very lucky. Our kitchen knives are very
touch and I swear they will cut you if you look at them wrong.

She will be using a cutting board in the future. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Maybe TBN's resident Doc/Vets have a clue as to why this works?

Later...
Dan AkaPepperMan McCarty

 

[Gary_in_Indiana]

Well, I've used pepper to stop leaks in radiators. I never thought to try it to stop leaks in people, too. /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif Thanks for the tip. /w3tcompact/icons/clever.gif

 

[rancar]

This is very revealing PepperMan, eh.....I mean Dan. /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif I'm going to remember this and try it next time I cut myself.

Bob

 

[poorboy]

Now I am hoping someone will cut themselves. That's just great, another character flaw to deal with.

Patrick

 

[crawdad]

wish i has known this on wednesday when i put the razor knife through my thumb, didnt go too deep
though, it stopped when it hit the bone,i saw stars,and boy it was a bleeder.
will have to start keeping those little peppers you get from the take out places.. ha,ha

 

[RanchMan]

That's really cool! I'm gonna keep a box in the truck from now on for use @ the ranch. (always cutting myself on something it seems like when I'm on "the back 40".../w3tcompact/icons/sad.gif)

I heard one regarding stings on the radio- can anyone confirm?

Basically it said to keep a small glass bottle (say with a 1/2" wide mouth, maybe a inch or 2 long) with chlorine bleach handy. If you get stung, you are to remove the stinger (if applicable), open the bottle and press the open mouth around the sting. Supposedly the thought is that the pressure from the bottle around the sting opens the puncture, which then allows the bleach to "flow" in to the wound. Since bleach is a base and the venom is supposedly acidic, they cancel one another out.

I'm no chemist, and have never tried this myself, but it *seems* reasonable based on what I remember from my college days. If anyone has tried it, let us know if it works or not.

 

[EdKing]

<font color=blue>I heard one regarding stings on the radio- can anyone confirm? </font color=blue>

I don't know about bleach, but I have heard that meat tenderizer (A1, Adolphs) works by breaking down the protiens in the venom. I have also heard that a shock, like a cattle prod or a spark coil from a gas engine will work as well, also for snake bite.

 

[Chuck52]

This got me wondering what's in the old fashioned styptic pencils. A search turned up sources for powders and such, but didn't give formulas. I looked up styptic in my MercK Index at work and found an alkaloid called stypticin (I think) that is hemostatic. Wonder if some component of pepper mimics that?

As for the stings, you're right about the proteins in the venom being the main culprits. The bleach might work by reacting with them, and it would also react with other possible non-protein components. I used to use a bleach solution to clean up the area where I was extracting fungal toxins. It inactivated most of them pretty quickly.

Chuck

 

[RanchMan]

Seems to me we need some empirical evidence one way or another on the bleach technique. Any volunteers??? /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif

 

[BobT]

It sounds interesting and may work --- home remedies for various problems. But in MOST CASES people should get any injury or illness treated by a physician, or at the local emergency room if you have no family doctor or if he or she isn't available. Often what seems like a "little" cut can have major & very serious repercussions if not treated correctly.

Home remedies can work in a pinch for simple ailments, but are no substitute for proper medical tratment of injuries and illness. Very few people have comprehesnvie knowledge of how to use herbal and other home ad natural remedies properly.