So I’m zipping along the other day, cruising down the highway, and then it hit me. Pain like I hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

The culprit? A McDonald’s McFlurry, which is probably my fault in the first place.

The malady? Sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia.

And let me tell you … you don’t want sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia under any circumstances. I haven’t had one in so long that I had forgotten the intensity that they bring.

We used to call them cold headaches when I was growing up, but they are more commonly known as brain freezes. For two minutes of pain and agony, there is only one thing that can even compare … for men. And if you have a Y chromosome, you know what I’m talking about. (Women have their own set of standards that I won’t even try to delve into.)

The only saving grace is that you know it is eventually going away, but it is almost total paralysis when a brain freeze hits. You are locked up and you better drop whatever it is that you are doing.

We all know that cold drinks or foods are what bring them on, but what is medically going on in there? So I looked it up and there’s something with capillaries being restricted in your sinuses and there’s some nerve that gets hacked off and sending a message to the brain to go on lockdown for a few minutes.

I’m sure your grandmother had a great remedy that she swears works every time — pressing the tongue against the roof of the mouth or tilting your head back for 20 seconds — but the real solution is to just suck it up.

And slow down on that next Icee. If there’s one thing your grandmother always told you, “You never know when sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia is going to strike.”