Ice cream headaches

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Definition

By Mayo Clinic staff

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Ice cream headaches are brief, stabbing headaches that can happen when you eat or drink something cold. Ice pops, slushy frozen drinks, ice cream, and other cold foods and drinks can have the same "brain-freeze" effect.

But there's good news. Most ice cream headaches are gone in the time it would take you to say their medical name — "headache attributed to ingestion or inhalation of a cold stimulus."

Symptoms
References
  1. Headache: Hope through research. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/headache/detail_headache.htm. Accessed Oct. 14, 2011.
  2. Headache Classification Subcommittee of the International Headache Society. The international classification of headache disorders: 2nd edition. Cephalalgia. 2004;24(suppl):9.
  3. Fuh JL, et al. Ice-cream headache — A large survey of 8359 adolescents. Cephalalgia. 2003;23:977.
  4. Boes CJ, et al. Headache and other craniofacial pain. In: Bradley WG, et al. Neurology in Clinical Practice. 5th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Elsevier; 2008:65.
DS00640 Feb. 7, 2012

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