This brain freeze ... it occurs in your brain?

March 2, 2011 2:01 PM

What do you call brain freeze when it doesn't occur in your brain? (Or any other pain that doesn't occur where you'd expect.)

You know that ice cream headache you get when you eat ice cream fast? I don't. I don't get brain freeze; I get back freeze. That sudden "OMG make the pain go away!" feeling that you get that I can see in your face is the same as what I'm feeling, except it shoots down my back, bypassing my head.

Some time ago I was talking to someone about this, and they said there was a name for this phenomenon where you feel pain in a place where the pain isn't. It seems like I was able to look it up and read about it, but now I can't think of what the name was for it, and I can't find anything like it on google.

This question isn't really about brain freeze itself, but about the dissociated pain. Something about twisted neural pathways. :) Sensations that are supposed to go one place go to another. I don't know ... I should have paid more attention in biology. Does this ring a bell for anyone?

posted by iguanapolitico to Science & Nature (13 answers total)

Referred pain?
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 2:05 PM on March 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Referred pain, yep. Other sensations are subject to that effect too, it's just that pain's the most common and/or noticeable.
posted by Drastic at 2:08 PM on March 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I was going to say "referred pain" too. And since I'm here, I'll tell you that I never get brain freeze either; I get chest freeze - exactly like your back freeze but in the front. What makes you think it's not real pain in that location? I always figured that the freezy liquid going down your throat triggered some pain receptors in the chest.
posted by CathyG at 2:10 PM on March 2, 2011

Referred pain, as chesty_a_arthur suggests. Some examples: pain from an ectopic pregnancy or gall bladder attack can be felt as pain in the shoulder; pain from a heart attack can be referred to the arm or jaw.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 2:10 PM on March 2, 2011

I get that in my back, too! I think it's from the cold stuff hitting the esophagus, rather than the palate. Interestingly, brain freeze itself is considered a form of referred pain, since it usually presents as a headache, even though it's the palate that actually comes into contact with the cold material.
posted by infinitywaltz at 2:11 PM on March 2, 2011

Oh, and I don't know why this should be so, but I was once told that sucking your thumb (so that the pad of your thumb is against your soft palate will ease the pain of brain freeze. Works like a charm for me. Might be interesting to see if it works the same for your pain.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 2:13 PM on March 2, 2011

Response by poster: Referred pain ... that must be it. And I'm so excited to know of another person who gets back freeze! :)

CathyG: I just never thought the pain was real in that location because it's so far back. When I swallow something cold or hot (something that doesn't result in back freeze) I feel it more toward the front of my body. Or middle. My back freeze is way back there ... it doesn't seem to be where the ice cream would be. :) (Or ice-whatever; I rarely actually get ice cream back freeze. It's usually from chewing/swallowing ice or other things. I don't get it often enough to even know what the last thing that gave me back freeze would have been.)

Sadly, according to Wikipedia, the mechanism is still unknown (though there are many theories). I was really hoping for some science-fictiony sounding explanation involving long, tangled pathways, misfiring neurons and twisted signals. I guess my innards aren't really that special.
posted by iguanapolitico at 2:46 PM on March 2, 2011

Brain freeze happens when the roof of your mouth gets too cold. Your brain thinks it's freezing so it heats up to compensate, and that's the pain. That's why people say to put your tongue or thumb on the roof of your mouth.

I have no idea why that would cause back freeze though, just throwing it out there.
posted by trogdole at 2:58 PM on March 2, 2011

I can't believe that there are other people out there who get their ice-cream "head-aches" in weird places. Everybody I've ever talked to about this has just thought I was crazy. I get mine in my left shoulder (which seems to support the idea that it's not *just* caused by the coldness hitting the chest/back area, but is traveling from its source and manifesting somewhere else).
posted by bookish at 5:04 PM on March 2, 2011

I thought it was a muscle spasm?
posted by gjc at 6:50 PM on March 2, 2011

Holy crap I thought I was the only one--I've never had an ice cream headache, but I sure do get 'throat freeze,' which sounds exactly like what you're describing, moved up by about 8 inches.
posted by Mayor West at 4:49 AM on March 3, 2011

Response by poster: Awesome ... we now have ice cream headache, backache, chestache, shoulderache, and throatache! Why be the same as everyone else?

ALL of your answers are the best, but I chose the one that had the link. :)
posted by iguanapolitico at 7:34 AM on March 3, 2011

And just for the record, I don't usually get "chest freeze" while eating ice cream, but mostly when drinking something like an Icee or Slurpee - a slushy frozen drink. Probably because I eat ice cream more slowly and let it melt before I swallow, but I just drink those slushies down.
posted by CathyG at 3:01 PM on March 3, 2011