Thunderclap Headaches Linked To World’s Hottest Chili Pepper

A new study carries a warning for competitive eaters and anyone who enjoys extra heat in their food: A healthy, 34-year-old man ended up in the emergency room with rare “thunderclap” headaches that lasted for several days after eating a fiery “Carolina Reaper,” the world’s hottest chili pepper.

The man’s symptoms started with dry heaves, but he developed severe neck pain and crushingly painful headaches that lasted a few seconds over the next several days, according to the study published Monday in the journal BMJ Case Reports.

The man was in such excruciating pain that doctors suspected various neurological conditions, but all of the tests came back negative. A CT scan showed several arteries in his brain had constricted, prompting the thunderclap headache secondary to reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome, or RCVS, the study's authors wrote.

RCVS, which is characterized by temporary artery narrowing often accompanied by a thunderclap headache, doesn’t always have an obvious cause, the authors wrote, but it can result from certain prescription medications or after taking illegal drugs.

This is the first case of RCVS to be associated with eating chilli peppers, the authors said, although they pointed out that eating cayenne pepper has been linked to sudden constriction of the coronary artery and heart attacks.

"Given the development of symptoms immediately after exposure to a known vasoactive substance, it is plausible that our patient had RCVS secondary to the Carolina Reaper,” the authors wrote.
The man's symptoms cleared up without treatment. A CT scan 5 weeks later showed that his affected arteries had returned to their normal width.

The Reaper, a hybrid created by Ed Currie of South Carolina, is a cross between the Ghost pepper and the red habanero and was specifically bred for heat. In 2013, Guinness World Records declared it the world’s hottest chili pepper.

Just how hot is a Carolina Reaper? It scored 1,569,300 on the Scoville heat-measuring scale, compared to a habanero, which rates between 100,000 and 350,000 Scoville units, according to the food magazine Bon Appétit. Competitive eater Matt Gross wrote for the magazine in 2014 that he ate three of them in just under 22 seconds, but it took him approximately 14 hours to recover.

Jeff Goertzen wrote for the Orange County Register in 2016 that he ate one Carolina Reaper pepper, calling it a “random act of stupidity.” The painful episode lasted about six hours, he said.

“For the first 20 minutes, each breath I took felt like I was fanning white hot coals inside my mouth,” he wrote. “My throat began to swell and my eyes felt like they were popping out of their sockets. Water ran profusely from my eyes and nose as beads of sweat broke out on my forehead. My heart was pounding. I tried to think cool thoughts. Finally the pain subsided and it was over, and I felt like a stud.

“But it wasn’t over. And I was no stud.

“Within an hour, my stomach began to burn. After two hours, the burn cut like a knife. Chills ran down my spine and the pain in my stomach became unbearable. I panicked as I made my way to the bathroom, hoping I wouldn’t black out. Vomiting felt like an exorcism because my body was desperate to rid itself of the demon inside.”

Read more about the study here.

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