Ice cream headaches are brief, stabbing headaches that can happen when you eat, drink or inhale something cold. Biting into an ice cream cone is a common trigger, but eating or drinking other frosty items, such as ice pops and slushy frozen drinks, can have the same "brain-freeze" effect.
Officially known as cold stimulus headaches, they can also occur when you suddenly expose your unprotected head to cold temperatures, such as by diving into cold water.
Symptoms of an ice cream headache include:
Sharp, stabbing pain in the forehead
Pain that peaks about 20 to 60 seconds after it begins and goes away in about the same time
Pain that rarely lasts longer than five minutes