Only super hot Chili, then emergency room

The pain sets in an explosion. It lasts only seconds, but the head pain is so intense that the man seeking medical help.

This is the right impulse: the so-called thunderclap headache that occurs suddenly and extremely strong, it can be life-threatening problems, a brain hemorrhage, for example. Doctors speak, because of the strength of the agony of destruction of head pain.

BBC-documentary: The Chili-Experiment: How much the sharpness of the man endures?

The Doctors ask the man if he suffered in the last few days under speech difficulties, vision problems, or weakness. He answered in the negative. His blood pressure is normal, a neurological examination and a urine test, nothing Unusual shows up. A computer tomography (CT) of the head and neck is unremarkable.

Narrowed Blood Vessels

With a special CT method, the Doctors see the blood vessels in the brain of the patient more precisely. Several arteries are severely narrowed, so that not all brain regions are optimally supplied with blood, the Team reported to Kulothungan Gunasekaran from Detroit in the journal “BMJ Case Reports”. You make a diagnosis of reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome (RCVS), so a temporary merging of the vessels pull in the brain. This can be triggered by various medicines and drugs. However, the man has none of the substances taken, he protested.

Instead, he says that the problems began, after he had participated in a competition – it was a matter of who can back the hottest chili peppers triple. The 34-Year-old ate a Bean of the variety, the Carolina Reaper (the Carolina Reaper), which is considered the spiciest Chili in the world.

Directly after the end of the competition, he got a strong gag reflex. First hurt the back of the head and neck strong, then the whole head. In the following days of the thunderclap headache flared up.

Probably the consumption of the Reapers has triggered the complaints, the physician, although no case was known in the chili is a RCVS pods caused. The Doctors refer to a report from 2012, according to a 25-suffered Years after the ingestion of Cayenne pepper pills a heart attack. Both in the tablets as well as in the chili pepper, the spicy taste is the substance Capsaicin, which is enjoyed in the usual amounts – safe.

The 34-Year-old is recovering without complications. More thunder, head pain, spared to him. After five weeks the Doctors to produce a recording of the brain blood vessels, the contractions are gone.