An Illinois man was diagnosed with a brain tumour following a hot sauce challenge, and credited the spicy contest with saving his life.

Randy Schmitz completed the hot sauce challenge and fell ill almost immediately afterwards. An MRI showed that he had a malignant brain tumor.

Schmitz believed he was healthy when he travelled with his family to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina last summer. The 30-year-old stopped at a hot sauce store on the boardwalk called Pepper Palace and stepped up to their hot sauce challenge.

The Pepper Palace's Flashbang Hot Sauce is billed as the world's hottest, and contestants are invited to dip a toothpick in it, put it on their tongue, and last five minutes without drinking water. Those that complete the challenge have their name and photo posted on the store's "Wall of Flame."

"I've done some other challenges in the past — this was possibly the worst one," Schmitz, admitted. "I made it the five minutes. My sister then said she wanted to take the challenge, but I said, 'You might want to hold off, I'm feeling really sick.'"

Schmitz had a seizure, and doctors discovered a tumour in his brain.

"My head was feeling really off," he said. "Next thing I know, I wake up in a stretcher in a hospital hallway covered in vomit and I had no clue what had happened."

Back in Illinois, he underwent surgery to remove the tumour at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and recently completed radiation therapy. Now cancer-free, he credited Pepper Palace and Flashbang Hot Sauce for saving his life.

"They don't know exactly how long it was in there," he said of the tumour, "so it would have just kept growing and might have gotten to the point where they couldn't remove it. My life would have been over."

Pepper Palace CEO Craig Migawa was grateful for his company's role in Schmitz' good fortune.

"We are honoured to have been a part of this story and we are humbled to know something as simple as a hot sauce can make such a difference," he said in a statement.