Why it sometimes hurts to eat ice cream

Few foods align more perfectly with a particular time of year than ice cream and summertime. As anyone who has ever excitedly eaten ice cream a little too fast knows, it's not always pleasurable to sit down and indulge in a scoop or two. According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, the sensation widely known as "ice cream headache" can be quite painful. Technically known as cold neuralgia or sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia, ice cream headache likely occurs because eating something very cold can cause the temperature of the palate to drop substantially. That drop initially causes blood vessels to constrict before they ultimately open up. It's during that expansion when the painful feelings associated with ice cream headache present. Taking small bites of ice cream can help prevent ice cream headache and ensure those summertime scoops are pain-free.