Brain Freeze! Is There No Escape From That Icy Ache This Summer?

By Chris Hutchins, Knight Ridder Newspapers A bone-chilling beast is stomping into the suburbs. Criss-crossing the nation, it's numbing the minds of the young ... and young at heart!

Dum-dum!

This summer, SubZero Pictures presents a tale of frost-bitten frenzy! An innocent sundae becomes a cold-blooded killer! I'll scream ... you'll scream ... we'll all scream for ...

Dum-dum!

... THE BRAIN FREEZE!

The summer's sure-fire blockbuster also goes by the widely-accepted moniker, the ''ice cream headache.''

Surely you've had one. Ida Snyder of Lexington, Ky., has.

''It feels like your head is going to bust,'' the 76-year-old says.

Yup. Brain freeze is what makes your head split when you eat a banana split. It's a piercing pain in the head, usually at the temples, near the bridge of the nose, or on the forehead. Brain freezes strike when you consume ice cream _ or anything chilly: popsicles, Slurpees, soda _ way, way too quickly.

This is serious pain, people. We're talking 30 to 60 seconds of synapse-chattering, eye-watering, temple-rubbing, ''I-ate-it-too-fast!''-chanting pain. There's no cure and no treatment for the frigid phenomenon; the pain eventually melts away.

Studies say one out of every three Americans has experienced brain freeze. If you've been able to escape its icy clutches, you may have seen some folks suffering from it. Fifteen-year-old Jennifer Wilson sure has.

''Their eyes get really big, and they grab the sides of their head,'' said Wilson, who works at Baskin-Robbins in Lexington, Ky. ''They usually say, 'Oh my God! Brain freeze!'''

So what's the medical explanation for the malady? Here's the scoop: You won't get just one story from headache experts, but they will agree on one thing.

The combination of the cold substance you're eating and your warm upper palate is explosive. As you greedily suck on that Slurpee, it's washing to the back of your mouth. The frozen goop is blasting your body's 98.6-degree soft palate. The ice-pick-digging-into-your-headache is the result.

Thomas N. Ward, a board member for the American Council for Headache Education (appropriately abbreviated ACHE), suggests brain freeze is caused by a reaction between the cold substance and the trigeminal nerve, which is associated with migraine headaches.

Merle Diamond, associate director of Chicago's Diamond Headache Clinic, insists it's the glossopharyngeal nerve that starts the process.

Well, that clears things up.

Other theories say the pain is caused by the dilation of blood vessels in the brain, or by the rapid cooling of air in the sinuses.

Got a headache trying figure it all out? That's OK. Let's stick to the explanation supplied by John Harrison. He has one of the coolest jobs in the world: official taste-tester for Edy's Ice Cream.

''You're freezing your buds,'' 57-year-old Harrison explained. ''It's a real shock to the system.''

He's referring to tastebuds. And he should know a lot about them ... his are insured for a million bucks.

If you've been a victim of brain freeze, you know the pain quickly subsides. It's not life-threatening, even if it feels that way.

And don't think folks in the ice cream industry are publicizing the side-effect. Local ice cream shop employees admit they don't warn customers to eat slowly. And in a nation where ''Caution: Coffee is Hot!'' labels are stamped on styrofoam cups, there are no warning labels about brain freeze on ice cream containers.

Not that anyone's complaining, mind you.

''We don't hear about it at all,'' said Amy Smith, a consumer response representative at Good Humor-Breyers. ''We never get, 'It gave me a headache.' It's not something people complain about.''

Richard Graeter, executive vice president of the Cincinnati-based Graeter's, agreed. ''I can't say I've ever had a call about that. I've had someone say they cracked a tooth because the ice cream was frozen, but no one's ever complained about brain freeze.''

Maybe it's because everybody loves ice cream. And popsicles. And frozen drinks. And ice water. Especially on hot summer days.

''It's a risk I'm willing to take,'' said 20-year-old Gary Boehm as he waited on an order at Baskin-Robbins. ''Ice cream is good.''

Indeed. But the fact that doctors can't agree on what really causes brain freeze -- and that the industry won't mention the problem -- brings up a chilling concept. Consider this: What if these folks actually knew the secret to brain freeze, and weren't telling the public? What if there's an X-file on the topic buried in Antarctica, away from prying eyes? What if ice cream headaches were really ...

Dum-dum!

... a conspiracy?

Ice cream eaters had fun with the idea. Lynda Yanik, 38, hypothesized that brain freeze is actually a side effect of ''the government putting chemicals in ice cream to program us,'' she said, while sitting in Graeter's in Lexington. ''It makes us pay our taxes.''

Sixteen-year-old Richie Hoagland let his imagination run wild at Baskin-Robbins: ''The secret is ice cream kills your brain cells.''

His buddy, Drew Harper, 14 agreed, ''There's little aliens in there, and they go and eat your brain cells.''

''I think it's Sara Lee,'' deadpanned pro-ice cream eater Harrison. ''She wants us to eat cake instead of ice cream.''

Experts are not amused.

''Headaches are not a laughing matter,'' said Suzanne Simons, executive director of the National Headache Foundation.

Diamond agreed.

''It sounds like the people you talked to need to see another kind of doctor,'' she said.

But Ward -- who's had his share of brain freezes -- considered the notion.

''Maybe it's karma,'' he mused. ''Ice cream isn't the best thing in the world for you. It could be a punishment from on high for dietary indiscretions.''

Despite its causes, brain freeze can be avoided, experts say. First, slow down. ''Pace yourself,'' suggests Harrison, ''and put a small amount in your mouth initially. You have to temper it, prepare it for what's coming.''

And have a glass of water handy -- preferably at room temperature -- to wash down the ice cream if things get intense. If you don't have any water around, Simons offers another tip.

''Warm the roof of your mouth by placing your tongue against it,'' she said. ''That usually helps it subside quickly.''

So what does the future hold for the dreaded brain freeze? Last year, Americans spent $11 billion on frozen desserts and consumed 1.3 billion gallons of them. And despite all the money going into the industry -- and the sugar-free products on the shelves -- apparently no one's ever demanded a ''headache-free'' flavor.

''And if they did, I'm not sure it could be done,'' Harrison said. ''With the technology we have today, we cannot have headache-free ice cream,'' he says.

But if there's an outcry for it, that's not going to stop Graeter.

''If the need arose, we'd certainly try,'' he said, laughing. ''I wouldn't want people to stop eating ice cream because of headaches. We would heavily invest in that kind of research to keep people eating.''

And then the icy beast known as ice cream headache -- a.k.a. THE BRAIN FREEZE -- would be vanquished forever.

Dum-dum!

Until the sequel, that is.