NEW YORK — A man in New York was hospitalized with rare thunderclap headaches after eating the world’s hottest pepper, a medical journal reports.

The 34-year-old man who ate a Carolina Reaper chili pepper during a contest, which landed him in the emergency room, the report published Monday in BMJ Case Reports said.

Thunderclap headaches strike suddenly, peaking within 60 seconds, and can warn of potentially life-threatening conditions.

Doctors at Bassett Medical Center in Cooperstown, New York, found no other neurological symptoms, such as slurred speech or impaired vision, according to the report.

"Then CT angiography was done, which showed narrowing of the blood vessels in the brain,"  Dr. Kulothungan Gunasekaran said. "You could see the beaded appearance [of the arteries], and the yellow arrows point to the narrowing of the blood vessels."

According to CNN, he was diagnosed with reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome (RVS), which happens when vessels supplying blood to the brain tighten. RVS is rare and typically associated with specific medications or illicit drugs, such as cocaine and amphetamines — not hot peppers. 

This is the first report of anyone showing such symptoms after eating a chili pepper, according to the report.

According to the company's website, the Carolina Reaper was bred in 2013 by Ed Currie of the Puckerbutt Pepper Company.

The pepper measures roughly 1.5 million on the Scoville Heat Scale — a measurement of the pungency, or spiciness, of chili peppers. That is over 400 times spicier than jalapeño peppers, which average 3,500 to 8,000 on the Scoville scale, according to a 2013 study.