Although orgasm is usually a pleasurable and positive activity for most people, it can become 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 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 too; for example by severity.
Basically, primary headaches have a known or unknown cause, whereas symptomatic headaches are frequently the result of trauma. Primary headaches include amongst others: migraine, tension headaches, cluster headaches and coital headaches.
Coital headaches, also called coital cephalalgia or sexual headaches, is a rare, but severe form 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 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 age groups most at risk are those between 20 and 25 and 30 and 44. Doctors do not really understands why this should be. Coital headaches affect about one percent of the population, although this figure could be a lot higher because of people being embarrassed to talk about it.
Coital headaches are benign, meaning that they have no long-term ill effects, as far as doctors know. It seems that people taking sexual stimulants, like Viagara, are about 10% more at risk to a bout of 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 while seeing a doctor though, especially in the early cases, just to exclude the more severe reasons for headaches, such as brain tumours and blood clots. However, the doctor can do rather little to help by way of cure. He may recommend a complete abstention from any form of sexual practice for a period varying from days to weeks or he may recommend trying taking medication a short time before sexual foreplay begins.
Some of the headache medications that can be used are indomethacin, imitrex, zomig and propranolol, although if the headaches continue, your doctor may prescribe 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 similarly be helpful. Coital headaches and migraines are also more likely to occur if the person is in poor physical shape.
However, the cure for coital headaches for many 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.
Now the good news is that most headaches related to sexual activities are not at all serious in nature. In fact, research actually states that orgasm can stop headaches and even migraine in some cases. This means that for some adults, refusing sex may actually be the cause of their headache in the first place.
If you have a problem with migraine or headaches, you ought to definitely go to our website on Stopping Headaches. Don’t reprint this exact article. Instead, reprint a free unique content version of this same article.