Tonight we went to Jeremy’s softball game. It is our tradition to stop at the nearby gas station before heading home for a cold treat. This evenings frozen choice was slushy’s, or “flushy’s” as Emery calls them (the bathroom humor NEVER stops around here!).
It was so late when we got home and the kids still desperately needed showers after crawling around with a family of ants, collecting weeds “flowers” with another group of kids, and drawing pictures in the sand of the ballfield. So I told them they could just take their flushy’s into the shower with them. I hopped in too and washed them up while they sipped.
My flushy waited for me to get finished with them. By the time I did, I was tired and thristy and I gulped it down pretty quick. Then…it hit me….Brain Freeze!!! Ouch!!!
Emery gets brain freezes almost every time he eats ice cream. He will be munching down big mouthfuls of it and suddenly start crying. The first few times it happened we were like, “what in the world is wrong with him?” Now we’ve come to expect it!
But I haven’t had one in a while, so after I got them tucked into bed, I googled it to find out why that happens. And now that I know, I will share this bit of information with all my wonderful readers out there. Consider it my public service announcement for summer:
Okay, first nothing really happens in your brain (and according to one site, no brain damage occurs from eating ice cream too fast…apparently this is a concern for some). When a very cold substance hits the roof of your mouth, the nerves think you are in a very cold environment and work to warm up the brain by swelling blood vessels in the head. That’s what causes the pain.
And it was interesting to find out that it almost never happens in the winter months. The temperature change has to be drastic for brain freeze to occur, so it’s most common in the summer, or in my case, just getting out of a hot shower.
What can you do to stop it? Well, I always just close my eyes and rub my temples, but the websites I found said you can simply warm your palate with your tongue or bend down and put your head between your legs, causing warm blood to flow to your head.
So there ya go. Just in time for summer. No need to fear that double scoop of Ben and Jerry’s now. Well, maybe your waistline should fear it, but not your noggin!!!
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