Ice Cream Headache, A Simple Guide To The Condition, Diagnosis, Treatment And Related Conditions

By Kenneth Kee

This book describes Ice cream Headache, Diagnosis and Treatment and Related Diseases

Have you ever bite into an ice cream and suddenly feel your head starting to hurt and your brain feels like frozen?
I have and I know how much my head aches.
Since that day 20 years ago I have tried not to eat any ice cream.

Ice Cream Headache or Sphenopalatine Ganglioneuralgia (nerve pain of the sphenopalatine ganglion) is a type of migraine headache that is activated by eating cold foods (oropharyngeal irritation due to cold foods), the consumption of which may produce bi-frontal headaches.
It is also termed brain freeze, cold-rush, cold-stimulus headache especially after quick consumption of cold beverages or foods such as ice cream and ice pops.

While the patient may feel pain, it is not dangerous and does not indicate that anything is wrong in the body.
The ice cream headache goes away quickly with a rush of pain-killing endorphins canceling out the pain.
There is a sharp, stabbing pain in the forehead
The head pain peaks about 30 to 60 seconds after it begins
The head pain rarely lasts longer than five minutes
But no matter what it is called, it hurts like hell.

When some cold item touches the roof of the mouth (palate), the sudden temperature alteration of the tissue there activates the nerves to produce rapid dilation and swelling of blood vessels.
This action is to try to direct blood to the area and warm it up again.
The dilation of the blood vessels activates pain receptors, which then secrete pain-causing prostaglandins, raise sensitivity to further pain, and cause inflammation while sending signals through the trigeminal nerve to alert the brain to the problem.
Since the trigeminal nerve also feels the facial pain, the brain construes the pain signal as coming from the forehead.

The research by Harvard Medical School used trans-cranial Doppler imaging to study blood flow in the brains of patients while they had ice cream headaches or brain freeze induced using iced water.
They also conducted the experiment with normal temperature water as a control.
The results reveal that ice cream headaches is followed by a rapid dilation of the anterior cerebral artery, which fills the brain with blood and in turn causes pain.
When the vessel constricts, the patients report that the pain has disappeared.
The doctors believe that it is a form of self-protection for the brain:
The brain is one of the important organs in the body and it should be kept working all the time

Ice cream headaches can affect anyone.
The patient may be more vulnerable to ice cream headaches or have more-severe ice cream headaches if he or she is prone to migraines.
The headaches may also be more frequent among people with a history of head injuries.

Diagnosis
The diagnosis of ice cream headache is medical.
A history of eating ice cream or a cold environment is important for the diagnosis.
X-rays, MRI, EEG and laboratory tests are only required to exclude other secondary causes of headaches such as tumors, inflammation, trauma, seizures etc
Treatment
The headache recovers within 10 minutes of removing the cold stimulus.
It does not need any medical treatment but relief can be obtained from one of these:
1. Pressing the tongue against the roof of the mouth to warm the area or
2. Tilting the head back for about 10 seconds.
3. Drinking a liquid that has a higher temperature than the substance that produced the ice cream headache.
4. Breathing in through the mouth and out through the nose, thus moving warm air through the nasal passages.

TABLE OF CONTENT
Introduction
Chapter 1 Ice cream Headache
Chapter 2 Causes
Chapter 3 Symptoms
Chapter 4 Diagnosis
Chapter 5 Treatment
Chapter 6 Prognosis
Chapter 7 Migraine Headache
Chapter 8 Trigeminal Neuralgia
Epilogue

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kenneth Kee
• Release date: Dec 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463213025

Kenneth Kee

Medical doctor since 1972.Started Kee Clinic in 1974 at 15 Holland Dr #03-102, relocated to 36 Holland Dr #01-10 in 2009.Did my M.Sc (Health Management ) in 1991 and Ph.D (Healthcare Administration) in 1993.Dr Kenneth Kee is still working as a family doctor at the age of 74However he has reduced his consultation hours to 3 hours in the morning and 2 hours inthe afternoon.He first started writing free blogs on medical disorders seen in the clinic in 2007 on http://kennethkee.blogspot.com.His purpose in writing these simple guides was for the health education of his patients which is also his dissertation for his Ph.D (Healthcare Administration). He then wrote an autobiography account of his journey as a medical student to family doctor on his other blog http://afamilydoctorstale.blogspot.comThis autobiography account “A Family Doctor’s Tale” was combined with his early “A Simple Guide to Medical Disorders” into a new Wordpress Blog “A Family Doctor’s Tale” on http://ken-med.com.From which many free articles from the blog was taken and put together into 1000 eBooks.He apologized for typos and spelling mistakes in his earlier books.He will endeavor to improve the writing in futures.Some people have complained that the simple guides are too simple.For their information they are made simple in order to educate the patients.The later books go into more details of medical disorders.He has published 1000 eBooks on various subjects on health, 1 autobiography of his medical journey, another on the autobiography of a Cancer survivor, 2 children stories and one how to study for his nephew and grand-daughter.The purpose of these simple guides is to educate patient on health disorders and not meant as textbooks.He does not do any night duty since 2000 ever since Dr Tan had his second stroke.His clinic is now relocated to the Buona Vista Community Centre.The 2 units of his original clinic are being demolished to make way for a new Shopping Mall.He is now doing some blogging and internet surfing (bulletin boards since the 1980's) startingwith the Apple computer and going to PC.The entire PC is upgraded by himself from XT to the present Pentium duo core.The present Intel i7 CPU is out of reach at the moment because the CPU is still expensive.He is also into DIY changing his own toilet cistern and other electric appliance.His hunger for knowledge has not abated and he is a lifelong learner.The children have all grown up and there are 2 grandchildren who are even more technically advanced than the grandfather where mobile phones are concerned.This book is taken from some of the many articles in his blog (now with 740 posts) A Family Doctor’s Tale.Dr Kee is the author of:"A Family Doctor's Tale""Life Lessons Learned From The Study And Practice Of Medicine""Case Notes From A Family Doctor"

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