Carolina Reaper: Could the 'Hottest Chili Pepper' Make You Sick?

One man suffered a thunderclap headache after having just one pepper.

The Carolina Reaper has been named the hottest chili pepper available by the Guinness Book of World Records and the curiosity has led to people paying an uncomfortable price. 

In a variety of videos posted to social media, people are seen trying the pepper and their painful reactions are going viral. 

The Carolina Reaper gets a 2.2 million on the Scoville scale, which is the official measurement of potency for peppers. 

For perspective on the scale, a jalapeno scores anywhere between 2,500 to 8,000. The habanero gets a rating of 150,000 to 325,000. 

Eating a Carolina Reaper can also give you more than just a spicy mouth and sweaty forehead, they are so hot that a contestant in a pepper-eating contest in New York Had to go to the emergency room with blinding headaches after having just one.

Doctors diagnosed him with a thunderclap headache, one that breaks out suddenly and quickly becomes very severe, Dr. Roshini Rajapaksa of NYU Langone Health told Inside Edition.

“It can be a sign of a bleed in the brain, so you need to go to the ER if you experience anything like this," she said. 

RELATED STORIES

Latest News