When eating ice cream and sno-cones too fast I often get a “cold headache.” What causes this? What would happen if you kept chowing down on those frozen treats? –Chuck Nevitt, Dallas
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Ice cream headache occurs most frequently after you’ve worked up a sweat or during very hot weather. Typically it occurs when you cram too much cold stuff into the roof of your mouth. It reaches a peak in 25 to 30 seconds that can last from several seconds to a couple minutes. Most people feel it deep in the front of the head, although if the ice cream gets stuck in the vicinity of the tonsils you may feel the pain behind your ears. Cold farther down the throat produces no headache.
Ice cream headache occurs in maybe a third of the general population but in over 90 percent of migraine sufferers, who feel it in the same place they get migraines. (Many migraine victims take precautions with frozen desserts for just that reason.) Researchers believe migraine and ice cream headaches are physiologically similar, the difference being that migraine sufferers are abnormally sensitive to stimuli the rest of us ignore. As for what would happen if you applied the cold continuously, I imagine a migraine sufferer could give you a pretty graphic description. I don’t expect it’d be fun.
The effectiveness of the stunt is a matter of debate. Some urologists scoff at the idea. But other medical types have been known to tell patients having a tough time urinating after rectal surgery to put their hands in warm water. Merely letting the water run in a nearby sink sometimes works too. I tried it once without success, perhaps because my richly deserving would-be victim was dead drunk. But I’ve gotten too many testimonials from satisfied perpetrators to think the whole thing’s a fraud.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Slug Signorino.
