Cold drinks and headaches

[Sergio]

Why do our heads ache when we drink rapidly very cold beverages or icecream? :dubious:

[Reeder]

“So where do these horrible headaches come from??? I have not seen a better answer to the question than this excellent article by Joseph Hulihan, Temple University. 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 would be to keep cold things away from the roof of your mouth!”

http://www.foodsci.uoguelph.ca/dairyedu/icheadache.html