What Are Coital Headaches?
Orgasm is usually a pleasurable and positive experience for most people, but it can be painful for those who discover that it triggers coital headaches. For sufferers, sexual activity of any kind can result in 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 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 reason, whereas symptomatic headaches are often 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 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 become even more severe. 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.
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 understands why this should be. Coital headaches affect about one percent of the population, although this figure could be a lot higher due to people being embarrassed to talk about it.
Moreover, coital headaches are benign, which means that they have no long-term adverse consequences, as far as we know. It seems that people taking sexual stimulants, like Cialis, are roughly 10% more at risk to a coital headache. In fact, apart from the obvious, temporary pain, the worst issues 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 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 cure. He could suggest a complete abstention from any form of sexual practice for a period ranging from days to weeks or he may suggest trying taking medication some 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 could 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 also be helpful. Coital headaches and migraines are also more likely to occur if a 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 deed, various studies actually suggest that orgasm can relieve headaches and migraine in some cases. This implies that for some adults, refusing sex may actually be the reason that delays headache treatment.
If you suffer from migraine or headaches, you should definitely go to our website on Stopping Headaches.