Although orgasm is usually a pleasurable and happy experience for most people, it can be painful for those who find that it triggers coital headaches. For these people, sexual activity can actually cause these coital headache attacks.
Technically, a headache, or cephalalgia, is a symptom of a number of different conditions of the head and sometimes the neck too. They can be classified into two main categories: primary or idiopathic, and symptomatic, although there are other ways of classifying them too; for example by severity.
Put simply, primary headaches have a known or unknown cause, whereas symptomatic headaches are often caused by injury. Primary headaches include: migraine, tension headaches, cluster headaches and coital headaches, amongst others.
Coital headaches, also named coital cephalalgia or sexual headaches, is a rare, but severe form of headache that starts in the base of the neck during sexual intercourse, but before climax. It can happen in all conditions where climax is the expected result. The pain can move to behind the eyes and can then become even more severe. Typically the pain will last from a few minutes to an hour or so, but some cases have been known to continue for days in the worst cases.
It is surprising to many to discover that men are three times more likely to experience coital headaches than women and the people most at risk are those between 20 and 25 and 30 and 44. Doctors do not really knows why this should be. Coital headaches afflict about one percent of the population, although this number could be much higher because of people being embarrassed to talk about it.
Moreover, coital headaches are benign, which means that they cause no long-term adverse consequences, as far as we know. It seems that people taking sexual stimulants, like Viagara, are about 10% more prone to a coital headache. In fact, apart from the obvious, temporary pain, the worst effects of coital headaches are varying levels of dizziness, confusion and stiffness of neck.
However, it is still worth while seeing a doctor though, especially in the early cases, 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 treatment. He may suggest a complete abstention from any form of sexual practice for a period varying from days to weeks or he may suggest trying taking medication a short time before sexual foreplay commences.
Some of the headache medications that may be used are indomethacin, imitrex, zomig and propranolol, although if the headaches continue, your doctor may suggest daily preventive medication. People suffering from frequent coital headaches may obtain a positive response to migraine preventive medications, such as beta blockers or verapamil. Non-steroidal anti inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) such as ibuprofen may also be helpful. Coital headaches and migraines are also more likely to occur if the person is in poor physical shape.
However, the treatment for coital headaches for a lot of people can be as simple as bringing your weight up or down to the normal weight for your size. Coital headaches can also be cured in some sufferers by an increased level of exercise, although this could bring on exertion headaches in a few cases.
The good news is though that most headaches related to sex are not serious in nature. In fact, various 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 prevents headache treatment.
If you have a problem with migraine or headaches, you really ought to definitely go to our website on Stopping Headaches. Click here to get your own unique version of this article with free reprint rights.
