Coital Headaches

Although orgasm is usually an enjoyable and happy activity for most people, it can become painful for those who find that it involves coital headaches. For these people, sexual activity can be ruined because of coital headache attacks.

Technically, a headache, any headache, or cephalalgia, is a symptom of various 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.

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 headache, is a rare, but painful form of headache that starts in the base 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 more severe. Typically the pain will last from a few minutes to an hour or so, but some cases have been known to last for days in the worst examples.

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 understand why this should be so. Coital headaches afflict about one percent of the population, although this figure could be much higher because people are often embarrassed to discuss it.

Coital headaches are benign, meaning that they cause no long-term ill effects, as far as we know. It seems that people taking sexual stimulants, like Viagara, are about 10% more at risk to a bout of coital headaches. In fact, besides the obvious, temporary pain, the worst effects of coital headaches are differing degrees of dizziness, confusion and stiffness of neck.

However, it is still worth visiting a doctor though, especially in the beginning, just to exclude the more severe 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 kind of sexual activity for a period ranging from days to weeks or he may suggest taking medication some time before sexual foreplayor activity begins.

Some of the headache medications that may be used are indomethacin, imitrex, zomig and propranolol, although if the headaches continue, 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 a person is in poor physical shape.

However, the cure for coital headaches for a lot of sufferers 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 coital headaches are not serious in nature. In fact, various studies actually suggest that orgasm can relieve many types of headaches and migraine, although sadly not coital headaches. This implies that for some adults, refusing sex may actually be the reason that they cannot prevent their headaches.