He ate the world’s hottest chili pepper. Then it started thundering in his head

When the 34-year-old man decided to participate in a hot-pepper-eating challenge, he surely knew he was signing up for some tongue punishment. But he got a lot more than he bargained for after popping the world’s hottest chili pepper, the Carolina Reaper, into his mouth.

The Carolina Reaper, a devil-red twisted chili, is the hottest pepper in the world. The fiery punch of peppers is measured in Scoville units. A pepperoncini is about 1,000 units, and a jalapeno is about 8,000 units. The Carolina Reaper, on the other hand, is more than 2 million units and tastes “like molten lava,” according to its creator Ed Currie.

“Almost immediately,” the man in the challenge began dry-heaving, according to a case study published in the journal BMJ Case Reports. He developed a crushing neck pain and an intense headache. Over the next few days, it got even worse.

On at least two (and probably more) occasions, excruciating “thunderclap” headaches would send him reeling. These are headaches that come on suddenly and severely like a thunderclap, and can mean something is seriously wrong.

It was so bad the man went to the emergency room, where doctors quickly tried to figure out if he was bleeding in the brain. They couldn’t find anything seriously wrong, but did notice that arteries in his head had constricted, squeezing off blood flow. Then they remembered the pepper.

There is a condition called reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome, or RCVS, which causes thunderclap headaches when arteries narrow. It’s been known to happen with medicines such as antidepressants and certain decongestants, as well with illicit drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy, the doctors wrote.

Never before, however, had the doctors ever heard of a case where a pepper was the cause.

As other tests came back negative, they diagnosed the man with RSVS and gave him supportive treatment for the pain. Within a few weeks, all was well again, and the doctors pointed to the pepper as a culprit for the first time.

While they had never caused thunderclap headaches before, eating hot peppers has been known to cause health problems before. One man who ate the supremely spicy ghost pepper vomited it back up and tore a hole through his esophagus, and the chemical capsaicin, which gives chilies their heat, can worsen heartburn and ulcers and can even cause inflammation of the skin, reported SFGate.

This story was originally published April 9, 2018 at 6:30 PM with the headline "He ate the world’s hottest chili pepper. Then it started thundering in his head."