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Reader Susann writes in to ask, “What exactly is the cause of a brain freeze?”
You may know brain freeze by one of its other names: an ice cream headache, a cold-stimulus headache or sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia (“nerve pain of the sphenopalatine ganglion”), but no matter what you call it, it hurts like hell.
Brain freeze is brought on by the speedy consumption of cold beverages or food. According to Dr. Joseph Hulihan, a former assistant professor in the Department of Neurology at the Temple University Health Sciences Center, ice cream is a very common cause of head pain, with about one third of a randomly selected population succumbing to ice cream headaches.
So what causes that pain?
As far back as the late 1960s, researchers pinned the blame on the same vascular mechanisms—rapid constriction and dilation of blood vessels—that were responsible for the aura and pulsatile pain phases of migraine headaches. When something cold like ice cream touches the roof of your mouth, there is a rapid cooling of the blood vessels there, causing them to constrict. When the blood vessels warm up again, they experience rebound dilation. The dilation is sensed by pain receptors and pain signals are sent to the brain via the trigeminal nerve. This nerve (also called the fifth cranial nerve, the fifth nerve, or just V) is responsible for sensation in the face, so when the pain signals are received, the brain often interprets them as coming from the forehead and we perceive a headache.
With brain freeze, we’re perceiving pain in an area of the body that’s at a distance from the site of the actual injury or reception of painful stimulus. This is a quirk of the body called “referred pain,” and it’s the reason people often feel pain in their neck, shoulders and/or back instead of their chest during a heart attack.
To prevent brain freeze, try the following:
• Slow down. Eating or drinking cold food slowly allows one’s mouth to get used to the temperature.
• Hold cold food or drink in the front part of your mouth and allow it to warm up before swallowing.
• Head north. Brain freeze requires a warm ambient temperature to occur, so its almost impossible for it to happen if you’re already cold.
Now, back to Susann. Maybe you flossers can help her out. When she eats ice cream, it’s not her brain that freezes, but her back. “I get a back freeze, she says. “What’s up with that?” My guess would be it’s a neurological quirk that has the brain interpreting the cold stimulus and pain signals as coming from her back. But I’m not a doctor, I just play one on the web. Anyone with a little more authority have a better idea?
[Image courtesy of Donuts4Dinner]
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Comments (24)
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This reminds me of the sneezing when you look up at the sun article. Maybe the ice cream back-aches are caused by a similar effect as the sneezing, where a nerve is close enough to be stimulated as well?
posted by Steven on 9-30-2009 at 2:08 pm
I dunno, but I get spine freeze too. Similar problem to brain freeze but involving nerves in the esophagous maybe?
posted by Christina on 9-30-2009 at 2:37 pm
To Susan:
Next year remember to send ice cream a birthday card, then maybe it will stop giving you the cold shoulder.
posted by NateJ on 9-30-2009 at 2:50 pm
I don’t get brain freeze either, but I do get a searing pain at the bottom of my throat if I eat or drink cold foods too fast.
posted by Kelly on 9-30-2009 at 2:56 pm
Hey, I’ve never gotten a brain freeze before, but when I eat cold things too fast my throat gets really ridiculously cold. Not normal cold, mind you, but uber cold. As far as I can figure, that’s my version of a brain freeze.
posted by Patrick on 9-30-2009 at 3:01 pm
My anatomy teacher told us once to press your thumb onto your soft palate when you have a brain freeze to get rid of it. You look silly for a moment, but it works.
posted by Alexsandra Kle on 9-30-2009 at 3:14 pm
Another brain freeze remedy is to quickly and forcefully rub the top of your tongue up against the roof of your mouth. My only explanation as to why this works is that it quickly creates some friction that will warm the area up…or it’s like putting pressure on a wound which always seems to make it work better.
posted by chris on 9-30-2009 at 3:14 pm
I not only don’t get brain freezes, I’m pretty sure I can’t. I’ve tried everything from rapidly eating ice cream to chugging large Slurpees in a few drinks. I believe immunity to brain freezes is my “Mystery Men” useless superpower… :)
posted by Jeff on 9-30-2009 at 4:21 pm
Yeah! I’m not the only wierdo who doesn’t get brain freeze!
posted by Kristine B on 9-30-2009 at 6:19 pm
I get back freeze too, between my shoulder blades, in addition to brain freeze. I’m not sure why it happens, but it results in a good minute of awkward squirming. No one that has ever witnessed said squirming believes back freeze exists, but it does, and it hurts! As a very big fan of ice cream, I want to find a cure, but have yet to do so. The squirming helps though.
posted by Anne on 9-30-2009 at 6:28 pm
One person mentioned pressing your thumb to the roof of your mouth. I think a superior method is putting your tongue against the roof of your mouth and rubbing back and forth. Try to hit the soft palate. It works well and doesn’t look quite as odd.
posted by Ryan on 9-30-2009 at 8:37 pm
Please don’t take this wrong, but I’ve noticed that, of the people who have openly proclaimed their not-so-usual freeze-aches in their backs, they are all women. Could this be a gender specific phenomenon? Or is this just coincidence?
posted by Steven on 9-30-2009 at 9:47 pm
Another trick to relieve a brain freeze is to hold the underside of your tongue to the soft palate. The blood vessels on the bottom of the tongue are very near the surface and warms the palate rather quickly.
posted by Steve S on 9-30-2009 at 11:08 pm
Is this similar to the more dulled & local pains felt when a limb or appendage that’s been lingering in the cold, skating or skiing, comes into the warmth. I’d always felt the pins and needles that are somewhat similar to the return of blood to a limb that has fallen asleep. The difference I suppose would be that the nerves carrying those signals wouldn’t confuse the brain with the location of the pain, and thus the pain is felt where the cold limb’s blood vessels are being dilated. Am I totally off on this?
I envy useless superpowers…
posted by EtonaLife on 10-1-2009 at 12:39 am
Another method that works for me is to slowly breath out through you mouth and nose at the same time. Your breath rapidly warms the vessels. Works very fast, doesn’t look odd and you can talk while you cure yourself.
posted by Mike M on 10-1-2009 at 8:31 am
My brother swears that sticking a finger in your bellybutton will get rid of a brain freeze. It seems to work, oddly enough.
posted by bryn on 10-1-2009 at 8:47 am
The quickest way to get rid of brain freeze is to take a big mouthful of HOT water, make sure it hits the roof of your mouth. Even lukewarm water works, anything to increase the temp of the roof of your mouth. I do this and the pain subsides almost instantly.
posted by R Brown on 10-1-2009 at 9:19 am
Oh and I forgot, perform the “hick” maneuver fighter pilots use to prevent blacking out from high G’s. This forces warm blood up into your cold head.
posted by R Brown on 10-1-2009 at 9:21 am
i get terrible brain freezes. Male. Also prone to migraine which I bet is an exacerbating factor. Yet. somehow, despite the awful brain freezes, i seem to wolf down ice cream faster than anyone I know
posted by eethec on 10-1-2009 at 9:28 am
To relieve a freeze, I pinch the nerve located between your thumb & index finger. (It works, but I don’t know why)
posted by It's Just Dave on 10-1-2009 at 11:36 am
When I eat ice cream too fast, I don’t feel it in the the head, neck, or back, but right down in the stomach. It’s sometimes strong enough for me to clutch at my chest and partially double over, but the pain stays down there until it subsides.
posted by Kevin on 10-1-2009 at 1:04 pm
Your ice cream could be causing esophogeal spasms, which can be felt as severe back and/or chest pain. “Nutcracker” syndrome.
posted by Debbie on 10-1-2009 at 1:23 pm
Ice cream seems to freeze my lungs and make me cough.
posted by Nerak on 10-1-2009 at 6:37 pm
Brain freeze is not experienced by everyone. According to studies only roughly 30% of the population suffers brain freeze. The most common measure which I have known in dealing brain freeze is (1) drinking water which is kept at room temperature or by either (2) covering the nose and mouth by your hands while breathing which can really help to speed up the warming process and reduces the pain caused by brain freeze.
posted by Brain Freeze on 10-20-2009 at 1:18 am