The Mindful Migraine

In Australia, we have a petrol station chain which is especially popular for the fast-food dispensers located near the pay counter. I can’t tell you how many (carless) teenagers go in and out of the petrol station in Summertime to get what we call “slushies” – a cup full of semi-frozen ice mixed with cordial syrup.

I have no doubt almost every country in the world has some similar version.

I also have no doubt that many of you have experienced what is colloquially called “brain freeze” – that shocking stabbing pain in your temples or bang smack between your eyes… it’s instant and it hurts enough to take your breath away.

Personally, I get them all the time… if I drink anything straight out of the fridge it doesn’t even need to have ice in it to send that instantaneous zing through my third eye, accompanied with a wincey-gasp. It’s so regular in fact, I tend to leave all drinks on the counter for a few minutes before I even consider drinking them.

While trawling Blog-land to read as many blogs as I can in my allotted “free-read” time, I recently came across one to do with the science behind brain freeze: Organ Oddities – Why We Get Brain Freeze – Lucid

I laughed out loud at one of the earliest sentences in Lucid’s post: “Also known as sphenopalatineganglioneuralgia (yeah, apparently that’s a real word… sorry if you happen to have hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia ;)), ‘brain freeze’ is literally just defined as the headache that occurs when you eat or drink something cold.”

[And yes – hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is also a real world – it is the phobia of very long words, and, is (un)ironically also one of the longest words in the English language (although, it is actually a combination of Latin and Greek if we want to quibble).]

[As an aside – I remember being a little enamored with the long word “antidisciplinarianism” when I was studying George Orwell’s “1984” as a senior student in 1987… my daughter (who is studying it in the year 2025), doesn’t even blink… but she is a much better speller than me!]

Anyway – back to Organ Oddities. After explaining brain freeze is a bit like your brain receiving a “send all” message of pain signals and using the phrase that the symptoms are “similar to that of a migraine”, the post ends with: “Ultimately, brain freeze is a reminder of how complex and weird our nervous system can be.”

Me being me, I decided to investigate if there really is a relationship between migraine and brain freeze.

Turns out, like so much to do with migraine-pain… it’s tricky.

A promising start comes from this 2012 note from Harvard University – Understanding ‘brain freeze’ may be key to migraine treatment, says study.

The study hadn’t yet been published at that time… and I can’t see if it ever was…

probably because

…from what I can see in the feedback, it wasn’t conclusive enough.

A Fox News article (here) released at the same time as the study, referred to their findings this way: “Previous studies [not referenced] have found that migraine sufferers are actually more likely to get brain freeze than people who don’t get migraines. Because of this, the researchers thought the two might share some kind of common mechanism or cause, so they decided to use brain freeze to study migraines.”

13 people [which sounds like a tiny sample group to me] were asked to drink ice cold water through a straw pressed against the palate of their mouth, as well as a cup of room-temperature water. They raised their hand if they felt pain and dropped it when it went away. During that time, researchers monitored the blood flow through the participants’ brains using an “ultrasoundlike process on the skull”. Blood flow through the anterior cerebral artery (located in the middle of the brain behind the eyes) apparently increased at the same time as pain was felt.

According to the article, researchers suggested that “The dilation, then quick constriction, of this blood vessel may be a type of self-defense for the brain.”

The Fox News post ended by celebrating that researchers could see the potential for the development of drugs which stop blood vessels from opening up, or that could make this blood vessel constrict. I’m guessing they believed this is where the relationship to migraine occurs… but it’s not clear… and no obvious relationship to migraines is bluntly stated.

Hmmm…

I wrote about a neurologist who debunked the whole ‘blood vessels cause migraines’ approach a while ago (“Migraine fact or fiction“).

According to a drill-down on another site, ABC News (here), they also seemed to debunk the Harvard study before it was published: “…experts not involved in the study argued that the majority of headaches are not caused by alterations in blood flow. Migraine, for example, is widely considered to be a brain disorder, not a blood vessel disorder.”

“We have known for decades that migraine is caused by brain dysfunction,” a doctor is quoted as saying, “There may be vascular changes, but they are only secondary,” adding that the study doesn’t “seem to provide any evidence that the altered blood flow actually caused the pain.”

Moreover, two doctors interviewed about the study noted that the promising drugs advancements that were taking place at that time “do not affect blood vessels”, concluding that whilst the study looked interesting for brain freeze, “it’s too big a leap to tie the findings to other types of headaches.”

OK – since I can’t find any progress on that study (or any others), I’m calling it out as a bit of a dead end. The pain of brain freeze and migraine might be similar, but that doesn’t mean there is a definitive scientific link between the two issues.

Weirdly, there’s one other twist in the tale.

On the website PeoplesPharmacy.com, they have a strange little article titled How to Prevent Migraine Headaches with Brain Freeze. It includes a series of anecdotal questions and answers which suggest that there are many migraine patients who try to give themselves brain freeze to stop a migraine taking hold. Iced coffee milkshakes and iced frappuccinos seem to be the go-to drink of assistance.

[I am NOT an advocate of this approach for myself – I would risk ending up with double the pain not less pain! Moreover, whilst the brain freeze MIGHT be a treatment option, it might ALSO be the quick consumption of caffeine and sugar combined with the simple act of rehydrating yourself that is the reason it works for some people, some times.]

One last article, published recently, runs through the biology of brain freeze: https://biologyinsights.com/why-do-i-get-bad-brain-freeze-the-biological-reason/. The article explains what’s happening well:

“When cold substances rapidly cool the roof of the mouth, the body responds by adjusting blood flow. Blood vessels in the area quickly constrict and then rapidly dilate. This sudden change in blood vessel size and flow is a protective mechanism, designed to ensure the brain maintains a stable temperature.”

It goes on: “This rapid vascular activity activates the trigeminal nerve, a major facial nerve. The trigeminal nerve interprets these changes as a pain signal. This signal is then ‘referred’ to other parts of the head, even though the cold stimulus originated in the mouth. This phenomenon, called referred pain, is similar to how a heart attack can cause pain in the arm.”

Without providing any evidence or references, it then states: “Research indicates a connection between brain freeze susceptibility and other headache types, particularly migraines. Individuals prone to migraines often report experiencing brain freeze more frequently and intensely, suggesting a shared underlying mechanism involving blood vessel changes and nerve pathways.”

And so, it feels as if we are circling anecdotal evidence as gospel again…

Then again, in terms of anecdotal evidence, I DO think I suffer from brain freeze more than anyone else in my family… so… maybe… maybe, there IS a relationship between pain sensitivity that is aligned to migraine-brains.

[I came to a similar but different conclusion when I wrote about how my brain was more like a super-sensitive nuclear reactor, whilst the rest of my family had more stable coal-powered energy generators (here).]

My suggestion is, if you’re a migraine-prone person, then don’t consume very cold food or drinks – allow them to come to room temperature if possible, or else take very small sips and nibbles to reduce the risk.

Anyway… a curious little aside for today… especially as we are only a few toes out of Winter here in Australia and seeking out icy sips and nibbles is rare for the moment!

Take care taking care, at room temperature, Linda xx

[PS – Disclaimer – please remember I have no medical training whatsoever, so be sure to speak to your doctor for more information if you think your migraines might be related to temperature sensitivity.]