My Five year old asked me this question this week and I didn't have an answer.
Now I do.
An ice cream headache is triggered by a sudden change in temperature that occurs in your mouth when you eat something cold.
On a hot day when you eat a snow cone, the cold crushed ice that touches the top of your mouth initiates a nerve reaction that swells blood vessels in your head. The nerve center on the roof of your mouth over-reacts to the cold temperature of the snow cone and tries to heat your brain. This swelling of blood vessels is what causes an ice cream headache, or what is more commonly known as "brain freeze" or "frozen brain syndrome."
Luckily the intense stabbing pain in your head usually lasts only for about 30-60 seconds.
30% of the human population suffers from these excruciating headaches. The best way to avoid getting an ice cream headache is keep the chilled foods or beverages you eat on the side of your mouth, away from the roof of your mouth.
1 comment:
I hope you don't mind my posting on your blog. When I was little, my grandpa's favorite thing in the world was to treat his grandchildren to ice cream. We ate it AT LEAST once a day when we visited him, and naturally, we got the brain freeze headaches quite frequently. My PaPaw would say, "Look up at the ceiling, turn your whole head up, up, up!" And we would and it has always always worked. Don't know why, and I don't know why I never hear anyone else say it. I guess it was Papaw's secret.
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