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Cold towels on the head is to lower brain temperature while allowing the fever to run elsewhere. Brain tissue is much more susceptible to thermal damage than th
by gaius 8y ago
Cold towels on the head is to lower brain temperature while allowing the fever to run elsewhere. Brain tissue is much more susceptible to thermal damage than the rest of the body.
- jakobegger 8y agoDoes putting a towel on the head really lower brain temperature? I thought that the brain is part of the body "core" that always has the same temperature.
- gaius 8y agoWell, it’s the intent, I don’t know how effective it really is. But that’s where cold-towel-on-forehead comes from.
- Johnny555 8y agoI'd think it'd be better to cool the neck to cool off the blood in the carotid arteries on the way to the brain. Surface cooling of the scalp seems like it'd have a very limited effect on cooling the brain when body temperature blood is being pumped directly into the brain.
- dan000892 8y agoYour thought is in line with traditional thinking, but a 2015 study in the Wilderness & Emergency Medicine Journal found that cold packs applied to capillary-dense surfaces (cheeks, palms, soles) caused a greater reduction in body temperature that the traditional core/artery surfaces (groin, armpits, neck). Source: https://www.wemjournal.org/article/S1080-6032(14)00405-0/abstract https://www.wemjournal.org/article/S1080-6032(14)00405-0/abs...
- Johnny555 8y agoI can believe that's true for lowering core body temperature due to the larger surface area of capillary blood, but the post I was replying to said that cooling the head is specifically supposed to target just the brain and not the rest of the body: Cold towels on the head is to lower brain temperature while allowing the fever to run elsewhere It still seems that if the goal is to cool the brain and not the entire body, cooling the blood on its way to the brain is better than surface cooling blood in the scalp that's going to soon leave the head through veins.
- pmoleri 8y agoI think in the same way, however I never confirmed it. It also feels good, or less miserable, while you allow your fever to help fighting.