Man Rushed to Hospital with 'Thunderclap Headaches' After Eating World's Hottest Chili

Why you would ever put an extremely hot chili in your mouth hole, willingly, beats me. When the side effects of consuming a pepper can range from hallucinations to extreme pain and even fatal heart attacks, it seems about as bad as voluntarily watching more than 14 seconds of Ricky Gervais’ stand-up set. Or attending your ex’s wedding with no date because your mum was busy and they “don’t allow dogs as guests.”

Indeed, one man has been—ahem—burned by his chili penchant, after he was admitted to hospital following a pepper-eating competition in 2016. The 37-year-old, kept anonymous in the medical report published this week, experienced "thunderclap headaches" after consuming a “Carolina Reaper,” the hottest chili in the world.

As the Guardian reports today, the man started retching and experienced extreme neck and head pain immediately after eating the chili. However, it wasn’t until the days following the competition, when he suffered thunderclap headaches and further extreme pain, that he was admitted to Bassett Medical Centre hospital in New York State. The report does not state whether the man ate the chili with a spoon, or whether it was one he carved himself … from a bigger spoon.

The British Medical Journal report shows that after a CT scan, doctors found a narrowing of the arteries in the patient’s brain, presumed to be a consequence of eating the pepper. He was diagnosed with reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome (RCVS), a rare condition created by a sudden constriction of the blood vessels that supply blood to the brain.

The Carolina Reaper, eaten by the masochistic man, was first grown in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and was crowned the hottest chili in the world by Guinness World Records in 2013. It records 2.4 million on the Scoville Heat Scale, and is about 300 times hotter than the hottest jalapeno.

Yeah … that’s a no from us.