Indeed, I improved a migraine while camping once by sticking my head under a faucet running ice cold water. When I eat ice cream too fast I feel it in my chest not my head, but it is excruciating. It might be related to my having Central Pain Syndrome; I don’t know. But I was struck, in the article, when they compared ice cream headaches to migraines–because the cold constricts blood vessels–because the pain from a migraine is caused by the exact opposite–the blood vessels in the head expand and press on nerves. Things that cause vasoconstriction–like caffeine–improve migraine pain, not cause it. The only reason caffeine is bad for migraine sufferers is because withdrawal from it causes vasodilation and complicates migraine. In the good old days before imitrex and related drugs many migraine medications contained caffeine.
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