It’s not just in your head

As a daily ice-cream eater, Ladeja Hunter, 11, usually encounters that dreaded but inevitable effect of eating all things frozen: brain freeze.

But, like any dedicated athlete, Hunter's ice-cream-eating philosophy is "no pain, no gain."

"Sometimes when I eat it, I get a brain freeze and it hurts right here," she says, holding her forehead. "But you have to take a brain freeze and just shake it off and keep on eating."

It may seem frivolous, but brain freeze -- or ice cream headache or, as scientists call it, cold stimulus headache -- is one of those silly things that binds humankind together.

"It's a real phenomenon," says local neurosurgeon Dr. Randall Peoples. "Only about a third of the population experience it so there may be genetic components."

The definition is well-known; even a 7-year-old can describe brain freeze as that headache you get when you eat or drink something cold. But what causes it?

"It's like a tube goes up to your brain and the ice cream goes up there," says Jeremiah Williams, 7. "If I eat a lot, I get a brain freeze."

Aymia Jones, 10, thinks it's more likely that the ice cream enters a hole in the roof of the mouth and coats the brain with freezing cold.

Sharon Tiedemann, owner of Luv It Frozen Custard, had brain freeze a couple of days ago. In her opinion, ice cream makes the sinuses cold and causes pain.

While it may feel that way, Peoples says, it has nothing to do with the teeth, sinuses or even the brain.

Rather, it's caused by cold hitting a bundle of nerves and blood vessels found in the soft palate, or the back of the throat. Get that area cold enough, and you will probably get brain freeze. At least, if you're among the third of the population susceptible to it.

Meagin Spotts, 25, who manages two local Cold Stone franchises for her parents, says she has never had a brain freeze.

"The funny thing is, I don't get it. I'm the only person I know who can down a Slurpee and not have an issue," she says.

While it doesn't actually involve freezing the brain, an ice-cream headache can certainly stop you in your tracks.

"It stops you, for a few seconds you can't do anything. It kind of freezes your whole body," Peoples says.

There are two schools of thought about the pain, Peoples explains. One is that brain freeze is a "direct insult to the nerves, which triggers referred pain to the forehead."

Others believe, Peoples says, that blood vessels spasm when exposed to cold. First they constrict, then dilate, causing the pain. People with a history of migraine headaches seem to be more susceptible to it, he adds.

The findings of a 2002 study published in the British Journal of Medicine were along the obvious lines: The faster kids ate ice cream, the more likely they were to get a brain freeze.

That's the key to avoiding it, Peoples says. Eat and drink frozen foods slowly. And if you get it, despite your best efforts, try placing your tongue on the roof of your mouth to warm the palate or drink some warm water.

But, because a brain freeze lasts only about 30 to 60 seconds and causes no real harm, by the time you try a remedy, Peoples says, it will probably be gone.