I Scream Headache

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Do You Scream, " Ice Cream Headache! " ?

 

" What do you know about the type of intense headache you get after you eat

something really, really cold, like ice cream? "

 

-- Anonymous

 

(Published 05/30/2000)

 

Ah yes. The " ice cream " headache -- that blinding pain that suddenly slams into

your head over your eyes and sinuses. Of course, you don't need to be eating

high-fat ice cream to experience this agonizing phenomenon. An icy smoothie or

fruit sorbet can trigger the reaction just as easily.

There isn't much literature on ice cream headaches. What we do know we owe to

Dr. Robert Smith, an ice cream headache sufferer himself. He experimented with

bits of crushed ice placed in different parts of his mouth to try to understand

what caused the headache. It turned out the effect occurred only when the ice

touched the back of his palate, apparently stimulating the spheno-palatine

ganglion, a nerve center that controls blood flow to the head. When the cold

hits, the nerves cause blood vessels in the head to swell. That dilation of

arteries is the immediate cause of the pain.

Fortunately the reaction is usually over pretty quickly -- in 30 to 60 seconds

-- although the headache can last as long as five minutes. Try warming the roof

of your mouth to quiet the nerves. Or if you're really suffering, fight cold

with cold: Put a little ice to your head. This should get those blood vessels to

stop dilating. Interestingly, Dr. Smith could stimulate these headaches only on

hot days. He also noticed that migraine sufferers tend to get them more easily

than other people. He links the two -- partly because they both come on very

suddenly. Other people say there's no connection at all. I'm not apt to take

sides and make this into a cold war. I'd just say do your best to avoid them.

If you want to enjoy chilled things on hot days, remind yourself to take it easy

on your hard palate -- that spot in the middle of the roof of the mouth. Try to

minimize prolonged or frequent contact with anything very cold there. Keep cold

foods more on the sides of your mouth, and if you do feel the start of a

headache, wait awhile and let your tongue warm the hard palate up a little bit.

You can usually prevent any suffering by pacing yourself. Oh, and by the way --

it's a good idea to minimize your consumption of ice cream. The combination of

sugar and fat is very seductive, and such foods are big contributors to obesity.

Not only that, but butterfat is the most saturated of all the animal fats, worse

for your coronary arteries than beef fat. So go easy.

 

 

 

 

 

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