Abstract
Purpose of Review
To provide an updated review on cold stimulus headache.
Recent Findings
Age, type of stimulus, comorbidities, and study design but not necessarily gender appear to influence the reported prevalence of cold stimulus headache (CSH). Different cold stimuli appear to provoke different types of CSH. Ice water appears to provoke more frequent and higher pain intensity with a shorter latency compared to CSH provoked by ice cubes.
Summary
Cold stimulus headache is very common unusual headache with limited literature. The severity, frequency, and latency appear to be influenced by the speed and size of the exposed area.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: • Of importance •• Of major importance
Society HCCotIH. Headache Classification Committee of the International Headache Society (IHS) the international classification of headache disorders, 3rd edition. Cephalalgia. 2018;38(1):1–211.
Raskin NH, Knittle SC. Ice cream headache and orthostatic symptoms in patients with migraine. Headache. 1976;16(5):222–5.
Mattsson P. Headache caused by drinking cold water is common and related to active migraine. Cephalalgia. 2001;21(3):230–5.
Kaczorowski M, Kaczorowski J. Ice cream evoked headaches (ICE-H) study: randomised trial of accelerated versus cautious ice cream eating regimen. BMJ (Clinical research ed). 2002;325(7378):1445–6.
Fuh JL, Wang SJ, Lu SR, Juang KD. Ice-cream headache--a large survey of 8359 adolescents. Cephalalgia. 2003;23(10):977–81.
de Oliveira DA, Valenca MM. The characteristics of head pain in response to an experimental cold stimulus to the palate: an observational study of 414 volunteers. Cephalalgia. 2012;32(15):1123–30.
Zierz AM, Mehl T, Kraya T, Wienke A, Zierz S. Ice cream headache in students and family history of headache: a cross-sectional epidemiological study. J Neurol. 2016;263(6):1106–10.
• Mages S, Hensel O, Zierz AM, Kraya T, Zierz S. Experimental provocation of 'ice-cream headache' by ice cubes and ice water. Cephalalgia. 2017;37(5):464–9 Updated experiment that describes different characteristics of the cold stimulus headache based on the type of cold stimulus.
Rasmussen BK, Olesen J. Symptomatic and nonsymptomatic headaches in a general population. Neurology. 1992;42(6):1225–31.
Selekler HM, Erdogan MS, Budak F. Prevalence and clinical characteristics of an experimental model of ‘ice-cream headache’ in migraine and episodic tension-type headache patients. Cephalalgia. 2004;24(4):293–7.
Bird N, MacGregor EA, Wilkinson MI. Ice cream headache--site, duration, and relationship to migraine. Headache. 1992;32(1):35–8.
Hulihan J. Ice cream headache. BMJ (Clinical research ed). 1997;314(7091):1364.
Harries M. Ice cream headache. Ice cream headache occurred during surfing in winter. BMJ (Clin Res ed). 1997;315(7108):609.
Cheshire WP Jr, Ott MC. Headache in divers. Headache. 2001;41(3):235–47.
Jankelowitz SK, Zagami AS. Cold-stimulus headache. Cephalalgia. 2001;21(10):1002.
Burkhart CG, Burkhart CN. Ice cream headaches with cryotherapy of actinic keratoses. Int J Dermatol. 2006;45(9):1116–7.
Starling AJ. Unusual headache disorders. Continuum (Minneapolis, Minn). Headache. 2018;24(4):1192–208.
Wolf S, Hardy JD. Studies on pain. Observation on pain due to local cooling and on factors involved in the “cold pressor” effect. J Clin Invest. 1941;20(5):521–33.
•• Hensel O, Mages S, Kraya T, Zierz S. FV 3 Functional transcranial Doppler (fTCD) during cold-induced pain in the oral cavity and ice cream headache. Clin Neurophysiol. 2017;128(10):e306–e7 Cerebral vascular changes documented on transcranial doppler in this study in patients given a cold stimulus and reporting a cold stimulus headache but not those without the headache.
Naganawa T, Baad-Hansen L, Iida T, Ando T, Svensson P. Assessment of human intraoral thermal sensitivity with simple devices in the clinic: implications for orofacial pain conditions. J Oral Facial Pain Headache. 2015;29(1):83–90.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
Esma Dilli reports honoraria from Allergen and royalties from Lippincott. Amokrane Chebini declares that there are no conflicts of interest.
Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent
This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This article is part of the Topical Collection on Headache
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Chebini, A., Dilli, E. Cold Stimulus Headache. Curr Neurol Neurosci Rep 19, 46 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11910-019-0956-5
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11910-019-0956-5