Last night while Ian and I were catching up since he got back from China, I had myself a frap from Starbucks and managed to get myself an ice cream headache. ;-) Of course, this started us pondering what actually caused it. I’d always thought it was because the blood had been cooled rapidly, but Ian thought differently.

This afternoon Ian sent me an email linking to howstuffworks.com that explains the cause of an ice cream headache.

I have not seen a better answer to the question than in this article by Joseph Hulihan. It’s a little technical, but it contains some great information. Here’s a summary: When something cold touches the roof of your mouth on a hot day, it triggers a cold headache. The cause is a dilation of blood vessels in the head. The dilation may be caused by a nerve center located above the roof of your mouth — when this nerve center gets cold, it seems to over-react and tries to heat your brain.

Therefore, the easy way to avoid “brain freeze” is to keep cold things away from the roof of your mouth!

Howstuffworks “What causes an ice cream headache?”

So based on that information, Ian was right, I was wrong. :-) Now I know how to avoid the headache the next time I have a frap or anything cold ;-)