Causes

Ice cream headaches are caused either by exposing your head to sudden, extreme cold or by having something cold move across the roof of your mouth and the back of your throat, such as when you eat ice cream quickly or gulp a cold drink. Scientists are unsure about the exact mechanism that causes this pain.

One theory is that the cold temporarily alters blood flow in your nervous system, causing a brief headache. Blood vessels constrict to prevent the loss of body heat and then relax again to let blood flow rise, resulting in a burst of pain that goes away once the body adapts to the temperature change.