Understanding What Is Brain Freeze

The precise term for brain freeze is sphenopalatine ganglion neuralgia, which is a sober name for a not-very severe condition. Brain freeze is solely the body’s reaction to consuming too-cold foods. The body and brain manage a whole host of body goals, including temperature. Those who have a high fever, you understand that a few degrees of variation can truly have negative impacts on the whole body.

So, when you put something too cold in the mouth too hastily, the body’s first reply is to warm you as a backup. This ignites rapids of reactions involved in brain freeze. The body increases the blood vessels in the mouth, straining blood to the area to heat it. The quick shift in blood vessel size and blood flow here is what generates pain. But it’s not only the vessels encompassing the mouth which is affected.

Other vessels in the surrounding area may also enlarge or shrink, including in regions like the forehead and back of the eyes, in the area between the skull and the brain called the meninges. All these regions transmit pain signals to the brain through the trigeminal nerve, a nerve accountable for many services in the face and head. So, when the brain gets certain signals, the body recognizes pain not just at the origin of the problem, but also in the front of the head as well.

Brain Freeze A Bit Of A Secret

Certainly, eating too-hot foods is riskier than eating too-cold foods, so it’s not as if the body is warning about a real threat. It is hard to understand if there was a particular evolutionary benefit of brain freeze, but It’s being speculated that it’s the body’s way of telling to slow down.

And while the condition is linked with childhood, young minds aren’t significantly more responsive to it — it’s more likely that children just haven’t developed the habit of eating foods like ice cream gradually. Brain freeze even is in the animal kingdom such as cats, convincingly serving the same function and i.e. slowing down the consumption of cold foods.

How Is It Different From Other Types Of Headaches?

The main distinctions are in the indications. Take, for instance, migraines, which are the most prevalent type of headaches. Migraines are chiefly linked with pain on one side of the head or the other, vomiting, sensitivity to light and noise, and seldom blurry vision. Certainly, if you’ve ever had a brain freeze, none of those indications are present but the pathway is alike. The trigeminal nerve is affected in both migraines and brain freeze, but in the case of brain freeze, it’s reacting to a very brief event that fades instantly and doesn’t leave any lasting signs.

What’s The Most Reliable Way To Prevent A Brain Freeze?

If you are looking to bring the temperature of the mouth back up to normal so that the blood vessels can contract back to their neutral state. One of the best ways to do so is to press the tongue against the top of the mouth, where its heat will transfer into the tissue. Likewise, one can drink room-temperature water, which serves the same function.

Even if you don’t do either of those things, brain freeze generally lasts for few seconds to a few minutes, and it’s not serious — unquestionably not dangerous enough to deny personally the pleasure of ice cream.

Reference

It’s true that trigeminal neuralgia cannot always be cured and so is the brain freeze condition wherein one notices stabbing pain but it is short-lived. For having more clarity about the same try meeting Dr. Shailesh Jain best neurosurgeon in Delhi.

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