Nothing ruins a summer day quite like the jolt of pain that strikes while eagerly sipping a cold milkshake. The paralyzingly frosty sensation — experienced by about a third of the population — is a cold-stimulus headache, more commonly referred to as an ice cream headache or brain freeze.
“It occurs when a cold stimulus is applied to the top of the mouth or the back of the throat,” says Mark Green, president of the World Headache Society and member of the Professional National Headache Foundation’s Leadership Council. “Then the pain begins in the temples or frontal region [of the head].”
