A 34-year-old patient arrived at Cooperstown, N.Y-based Bassett Medical Center's emergency room with a "thunderclap headache" after eating a Carolina Reaper pepper, according to an article published in BMJ Case Reports.
While participating in a hot-pepper-eating competition, the man ate a whole Carolina Reaper, which is considered to be the hottest pepper in the world, according to Guinness World Records, The New York Times reports.
After the man started experiencing dry heaves, an immediate and intense pain hit his neck and head. The man sought medical attention after experiencing more of these extreme headaches, or thunderclap headaches, as deemed by physicians.
When the man sought medical care, scans of his head and neck showed constriction in arteries that can cause intense headaches, or reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome, according to the article in BMJ Case Reports.
One of the report's authors, Kulothungan Gunasekaran, MD, said for some reason the man must have been particularly sensitive to capsaicin, which is an active component of chili peppers found in the Carolina Reaper.
"I was discussing the case with a nurse who had eaten three Carolina Reapers," Dr. Gunasekaran told The New York Times.
"On a one to ten scale, [the headache is] off the charts," said Lawrence Newman, MD, neurologist and director of the headache division at New York City-based NYU Langone Health. It can indicate the kind of stroke that results from bleeding in the brain.
If that kind of intense headache hits you, it makes sense to seek medical attention "whether you've bitten into a pepper or not," Dr. Newman added.