wellness

Coital Headaches

Orgasm is supposed to be a pleasurable and positive experience for most people, but it can be less enjoyable for others who discover that it starts coital headaches. For these people, sexual activity of any kind can cause coital headache attacks.

Medically speaking, a headache, or cephalalgia, is a symptom of various conditions of the head and sometimes the neck too. They can be classified into two main groups: primary or idiopathic, and symptomatic, although there are other ways of classifying them as well; for example by severity or by area.

Put simply, primary headaches have a known or unknown cause, whereas symptomatic headaches are often the result of injury. Primary headaches include: migraine, tension headaches, cluster headaches and coital headaches, amongst others.

Coital headaches, also called coital cephalalgia or sexual headaches, is a rare, but painful type of headache that starts in the nape of the neck during sexual intercourse, but before climax. It can occur in all conditions where climax is the expected result. The pain can move to behind the eyes and can then be even worse. Typically the pain will last from a few minutes to an hour or so, but it has been known to last for days in extreme cases.

Men are three times more prone to coital headaches than women and the age groups most at risk are those between 20 and 25 and 30 and 44. Nobody really knows why this should be. Coital headaches affect about one percent of the population, although this number could be a lot higher because of people being embarrassed to talk about it.

Moreover, coital headaches are benign, which means that they cause no long-term ill effects, as far as we know. It seems that people taking sexual stimulants, like Cialis, are roughly 10% more prone to a coital headache. In fact, besides the obvious, temporary pain, the worst effects of coital headaches are differing levels of dizziness, confusion and stiffness of neck.

However, it is still worth seeing a doctor though, especially in the beginning, just to exclude the more serious causes of headaches, such as brain tumours and blood clots. However, the doctor can do rather little to help by way of cure. He could suggest a complete abstention from any form of sexual activity for a period ranging from days to weeks or he may recommend trying taking medication some time before sexual foreplay commences.

Some of the headache medications that may be taken are indomethacin, imitrex, zomig and propranolol, although if the headaches persist, your doctor could suggest daily preventive medication. People suffering from frequent coital headaches may experience a positive response to migraine preventive medications, such as beta blockers or verapamil. Non-steroidal anti inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) such as ibuprofen may similarly be helpful. Coital headaches and migraines are also more likely to occur if the person is in poor physical shape.

Nevertheless, the cure for coital headaches for many sufferers can be as simple as adjusting your weight up or down to the norm for your size. Coital headaches can also be cured in some sufferers by an increased level of exercise, although this could stimulate exertion headaches in some people.

The good news is though that most headaches related to sex are not serious in nature. In deed, different studies actually suggest that orgasm can relieve headaches and migraine in some cases. This means that for some adults, refusing sex may actually be the reason that delays headache treatment.