Why does my brain 'hurt' when I eat ice cream or very cold drinks?

You're sipping a slushie or biting into an ice cream cone too quickly, and suddenly you feel a sharp, icy, stabbing pain, as brief as it is intense, shooting across your forehead. According to the International Classification of Headache Disorders, this is a " cold stimulus headache, " also known as an ice cream headache (brain freeze). And while it may seem trivial, it reveals a surprising neurological and medical complexity.

In recent years, several studies have revealed that this minor "summer pain" could teach us about the treatment of migraines, the brain's reactions to cold, and, incredibly, how to protect the brain in critical situations.

Brain freeze is a short-term, intense frontal or temporal pain induced in susceptible individuals by the passage of a cold material (solid, liquid, or gas) over the palate and/or posterior pharyngeal wall. This sudden change in temperature causes vasoconstriction, followed by vasodilation in the blood vessels in the area. The trigeminal nerve , which connects the face to the brain, interprets this change as a thermal threat and sends a "pain" signal to the brain.

The curious thing is that we don't feel this pain in the mouth, but rather in the forehead or temples. This is what's called referred pain: the brain misinterprets the source of the stimulus, something very common in other types of visceral pain.

A 2010 article published in Critical Care Medicine—with the provocative title "Can an Ice Cream Headache Save Your Life?" —suggested that the mechanisms behind brain freeze could inform clinical strategies to protect the brain after cardiac arrest, using therapeutic hypothermia. Such rapid neurovascular reactions would help regulate intracranial pressure, cerebral blood flow, and autonomic reflexes.

In other words, ice cream can activate pathways that doctors try to replicate in a controlled manner in intensive care.

A review article published in 2023 examined the involvement of deep cranial structures such as the trigeminal nerve and the sphenopalatine ganglion, both known to be involved in migraines , cluster headaches, and facial neuralgia, in this phenomenon.

Furthermore, multiple studies have shown that the painful response to cold could reveal hypersensitivity of the trigeminal system, especially in predisposed individuals. The prevalence of this phenomenon varies from 15% to 37% in the general population, but is significantly higher in children and adolescents, reaching figures between 40.6% and 79%, according to data compiled in the scientific literature.

A key German study conducted with students aged 10 to 14, parents, and teachers, showed a prevalence of 62% in children and 31% in adults. This difference could be due to a combination of factors: behavioral learning to avoid painful triggers, greater neuronal stability to cold with age, and anatomical differences that make children more susceptible to rapid stimulation of cold receptors.

On the other hand, cold stimulus pain is strongly associated with a history of migraine. People suffering from this type of pain have prevalence rates between 55.2% and 73.7%, much higher than those with tension headaches (23%-45.5%). One study even revealed a surprising prevalence of 94% in people with a history of throbbing headaches. This suggests that brain freeze could serve as an indirect clinical marker of heightened trigeminal sensitivity, shared with other more disabling headaches.

Other identified risk factors include a history of head trauma and, especially, family history: children of parents with cold-stimulus headaches have a significantly higher risk of developing them. If the mother has suffered from it, the risk increases by 10.7 times, and if it's the father, by 8.4 times.

All of these data reveal that what is often perceived as simple "ice cream pain" is, in fact, an expression of complex neurological processes. Far from being trivial, it could help us better understand pain thresholds and the predisposition to broader neurosensory disorders.

Generally, no. It's a benign, self-limiting phenomenon with no medical consequences. However, there is one extraordinary clinical case, published in 1999 in the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, where a young man collapsed after drinking very cold water . Forensic experts suspected an extreme vagal reflex as the cause of death—not a classic brain freeze, but an uncontrolled autonomic response in the context of extreme heat and physiological predisposition.

This isolated incident serves more to demonstrate the body's ability to react dramatically to extreme stimuli than to raise alarm about ice cream or cold drinks.

The good news is that this peculiar headache can be avoided with some simple strategies. The most effective is to eat or drink slowly. When we eat cold foods quickly, the thermal stimulus to the palate is too abrupt for the body to compensate in time, triggering the pain response.

It's also important to avoid cold food directly touching the upper palate , as this area is highly vascularized and close to the path of the trigeminal nerve. Using a straw, holding the liquid on your tongue before swallowing, or not letting the ice cream melt too quickly in your mouth can help.

And if the pain has already started, there's a simple trick: press your tongue against the roof of your mouth. This contact helps restore temperature and relieve the discomfort in seconds.

So the next time a spoonful of ice cream freezes your forehead, remember: you're not exaggerating. Your nervous system is rehearsing a response that scientists are still trying to decipher—and perhaps harness.

This article was originally published on The Conversation .