Ice Cream Headache: What is it and how to avoid this headache

Surely you have ever experienced this situation: You are enjoying a beautiful summer day and with the heat that it is you decide that the most suitable dessert for after the meal is a delicious ice cream of your favorite flavor. You go to the freezer (or to the ice cream parlor, failing that), you take the first bite expecting to be flooded with pleasure by its flavor and suddenly, BOOM! A sharp headache surprises you? For what reason is this happening?

Known as an ice cream headache or frozen brain condition, this phenomenon is a short-lived pain that can spread around the eyes, cheeks, and even to the lower area of ​​the face. It occurs most often in people who have migraines, but it can happen to everyone.

Do you want to know why a headache occurs when eating ice cream or eating very cold food? In this article we explain it to you. attentive.

What is ice cream headache

Joseph Hulihan was in charge of publicizing this phenomenon in 1997 in a publication in the British Medical Journal. However, the theories and hypotheses regarding why this type of headache occurs are still, to this day, very scarce. The appearance of this headache affects a third of the population and at least one in three people has suffered from it at some point in their lives after consuming cold food or drinks, mainly ice cream.

Doctors Selekler and Budak published a theory in 2004 that related the origin of the ice cream headache to the direct stimulation of certain nerves, the cooling of the blood vessels located in the mouth, and the lack of control in the sensitivity mechanisms that surround the affected parts. The result of all this combination is that strong, spontaneous headache that only lasts a few seconds.

In 2012, Dr. Jorge Serrador carried out an experiment to try to glimpse more clearly the explanation for the condition of the frozen brain. To do this, he used 13 healthy people who were asked to drink ice water through a straw. As they did so, their brain was monitored using a transcranial Doppler, and the results were clear.

Upon encountering the sensation of cold, there is a rapid and strong increase in blood flow to the brain, this through dilation of the anterior cerebral artery, thus activating pain through the trigeminal nerve, which sends painful signals in the anterior area of ​​the forehead.

This rapid change is to blame for the immediate headache that we suffer from eating something cold and that fortunately, once the flow returns to normal, subsides. However, for your peace of mind, despite the unpleasant feeling that this type of neuralgia produces, there is no evidence that it poses a risk to the functioning of the brain or the areas it involves.

How to combat a headache when eating something cold?

To try to prevent headaches caused by consuming very cold drinks or foods such as ice cream, the first thing you have to do is eat them slowly and take a few seconds to warm them up in the back of your mouth before swallowing them. In case this trick does not work for you, there are other methods that you can put into practice to make the headache disappear immediately:

  • Warm the deepest part of the palate with the tongue.
  • Consume drinks at a natural temperature.
  • Inhale through your mouth momentarily, so that the warm air helps to reduce discomfort.

Other things that also cause cold in the brain

After a wide variety of studies carried out at universities in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, some researchers have concluded that ice cream headaches can also occur as a result of certain activities such as surfing or ice skating. The physicist Mark Harries, from the Olympic Medical Center in the United Kingdom, was in charge of discovering this effect when he pointed out that the sensation occurs at the moment of diving into a wave about to break in the case of surfing. On the other hand, the cold air that is in the skating rinks, once it is inhaled and reaches the softest and most humid area of ​​the palate, causes the same momentary headache.

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