He Ate the World’s Hottest Pepper, Then Landed in the Hospital With ‘Thunderclap’ Headaches

If you eat a really hot pepper, you expect pain. A lot of pain. In addition to the feeling that you have just put a live coal in your mouth, you may weep, vomit and wonder where in your life you took a wrong turn. You don’t expect a headache so intense and immediate that it sends you to the emergency room. But that’s what happened to a 34-year-old man who turned up at Bassett Medical Center in Cooperstown, N.Y., with what clinicians call a thunderclap headache. His problems began when he ate a whole Carolina Reaper — the hottest pepper in the world, according to Guinness World Records — while participating in a hot-pepper-eating competition. His problems began when he ate a whole Carolina Reaper — the hottest pepper in the world, according to Guinness World Records — while participating in a hot-pepper-eating competition. He immediately started experiencing dry heaves — not unknown in the hot-pepper-eating world. But then a pain in his neck and head came on like … a thunderclap. It passed, but over the next few days he experienced more thunderclap headaches — that’s the clinical term — so he sought medical attention. Scans of his head and neck showed the kind of constriction in some arteries that can cause intense headaches, doctors reported on Monday in BMJ Case Reports. The scientific term for this temporary narrowing of arteries is reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome...MORE