All About Brain Freeze: Here’s Why We Get The Ice Cream Headache

How is it different from other types of headaches?

The main differences are in the symptoms. Take, for example, migraines, which are the most common type of headaches. Migraines are typically associated with pain on one side of the head or the other, nausea, sensitivity to light and noise, and sometimes blurry vision. Obviously if you’ve ever had brain freeze, none of those symptoms are present. But the pathway is similar. The trigeminal nerve is involved in both migraines and brain freeze, but in the case of brain freeze, it’s responding to a very fleeting event that fades quickly and doesn’t leave any lasting symptoms.