Tips to avoid headache after putting cold foods and drinks in your mouth

You may have noticed that while drinking a really cold beer or eating an ice-cream, an unexpected headache appears. Some of us are affected more, with short sessions of extreme pain while others simply do not feel such pains. Statistically, only one third of the population is affected by such pains, mainly while eating cold food during very hot summer days, but recent studies showed that it also happens in normal temperature conditions and during cold days.

So, what really happens? When eating or drinking something cold, the nerves in the upper part of the mouth named “hard palate” inevitably make the surrounding tissues lower their temperature and a signal of possible danger of freezing is sent to your brain. To avoid a possible reduction of the brain temperature, blood vessels in the head shrink. As the relatively low quantity of cold food or drink in your mouth cannot keep the sense of freezing for more than a few seconds, the warm blood can rush again through the vessels and the fast change from constriction to dilation triggers the tough headache. This pain is usually felt in the mid-frontal and sometimes in the temporal area and peaks in half to maximum one minute. In medical terms, the fast constriction and dilation of the blood vessels in the brain causes pain receptors to stimulate the trigeminal nerve. The sensory information from the mouth cavity is mainly transported by this nerve and triggers the mentioned pain.

This is not a migraine, it usually fades quickly after it appears but sometimes can last up to five minutes and it does not pose a serious health problem to you. Sometimes, the headache is associated with a toothache, even if teeth are healthy.

If the pain had already appeared, the simple way to get rid of it is to warm up the hard palate (roof of the mouth) either touching it for a few seconds with your thumb or with your tongue, that can get warmer fast after swallowing the cold food/drink. The warming procedure gives a proper signal to the brain and calms down the pain.

As usual, preventing the pain is easier than calming it down, so a better idea would be to avoid direct contact of the cold food with the posterior part of the palate where sensible nerves are placed. A good result is obtained if you eat cold food slower and in smaller bites. Wolfing food down in seconds is bad for your stomach too, so you should make a habit consuming food slowly. Also, liking ice cream is better than taking bites.