Tue July 3, 2012 When Ice Cream Attacks: The Mystery of Brain
Freeze Originally published on Tue July 3, 2012 2:12 pm If it
hasn't happened to you, count yourself as lucky. For many
people, eating ice cream or drinking an icy drink too fast can
produce a really painful headache. It usually hits in the front
of the brain, behind the forehead. The technical name for this
phenomenon is cold-stimulus headache, but people also refer to
it as "ice cream headache" or "brain freeze." The good news is
that brain freeze is easy to prevent — just eat more slowly. The
other bit of good news is these headaches don't last very long —
a minute at the outside. Jorge Serrador studies brain freeze
headaches, not just because he wants to make the world a safer
place for ice cream eaters, but also for what they can tell him
about how and why the headaches occur. He's hoping that will
lead to better ways to treat or prevent them. Serrador is the
associate director of research at the War Related Illness and
Injury Study Center, wh