Monday late afternoon my brother called me due to his emergency. He was on a taxi to the emergency room of cardinal santos hospital because he couldn’t breath.
I rushed to the hospital. Instinctively, not empty handed. In the town district of the hospital I passed by a grocery and bought a tiny plastic bag of cayenne pepper (siling labuyo), made sure they were red ripe and fresh.
Sure enough I arrived at the emergency room. Found my brother on a bed. The ER doctor said that “oh our equipment shows 96 to 100% oxygen saturation, so there does not seem to be a problem. Will just let him go home and prescribe antibiotics and steroids for his skin.” There they go again. Can’t fix my brother’s breathing… concentrates on psoriasis. My brother flat out refused the steroids and the offer of a dermatologist.
My question: If there is no problem… then why does my brother still look and say he has a problem breathing? Then my brother points out that he has poor circulation in his cold and shaking hands. And he was shivering cold.
I’ve seen this episode before more than a year ago.
But this time I’m prepared. I gave Bugoy 1 cayenne pepper (siling labuyo) to chew on and a liter of filtered water. He spat out the cayenne pepper. I explained to him that he needed to chew another one, swish it with his saliva and under his tongue to for instant blood absorption. Then with water swallow it all.
He complied and in some 10 minutes he felt lots better and wanted to check out of the emergency room. His breathing was back to normal. His blood circulation in his hands returned.
All in all Emergency Room fee 800 pesos. Benefit? Zero. 2 pieces of Cayenne Pepper cost maybe 25 centavos. Benefit? Saved the life of my brother. Returned breathing to normal and circulation of blood to normal.
I will post a follow up for the root cause and solutions of this whole event.