If you eat an ice lolly too quickly, why do you get a headache ?

Answer 1

Brain Freeze - Now you know...


Ever wonder what causes an ice cream headache? You know, that painful feeling you get near your forehead when you drink something ice-cold a little too fast. 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 overreacts 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 stabbing pain in your head usually only lasts for 30 to 60 seconds.

30% of the human population suffers from these excruciating headaches. The best way to avoid getting an ice cream headache is to keep the chilled foods or beverages you eat on the side of your mouth, away from the roof of your mouth.

Answer 2

The reaction is triggered by the cold substance consumed coming into contact with the roof of the mouth. It irritates nerves in the region (sphenopalatine ganglia), causing them to spasm. These nerves cause the blood vessels in the brain to dilate. When vessels in the brain dilate, a common effect is an acute headache (a similar effect occurs when one takes a prescription vasodilator, such as Nitroglycerin or Viagra).

Answer 3

The nerves in the roof of your mouth react to the extreme cold and it causes an ice cream headache.

Answer 4

Eating anything frozen to quickly causes the vein to constrict causing less blood flow to the head, normally the pain is in the upper part of the eye

Answer 5

The headache is caused by your brain having to rapidly adjust to the extreme temperature change.

Answer 6

Brain Freeze- Oh man I hate that, I get the same thing if I drink a Slush Puppie.

Answer 7

I think it has something to do with the fact that you are rapidly bringing down your body temperature and your brain is designed to keep that from happening, so you end up with pain when the balance is disrupted.

Answer 8

i guess its the rapid change to a sudden cold environment that affects ur brains causin its muscles to contract thus bringin the headache

Answer 9

the soft palate in your mouth gets too cold, that is what causes the headache

Answer 10

The coldness. But it affects everyone differently.