Although orgasm is usually an enjoyable and positive activity for most people, it can be painful for others 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 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 the result of trauma. 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 painful type 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 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 continue for days in the worst examples.
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 afflict 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 we 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 seeing a doctor though, especially in the beginning, just to rule out 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 may suggest a complete abstention from any form of sexual activity for a period ranging from days to weeks or he may suggest trying taking medication some time before sexual foreplay begins.
A couple of the headache medicines that can be taken are indomethacin, imitrex, zomig and propranolol, although if the headaches persist, your doctor could prescribe some other preventive medicines to be taken|used| on a daily basis. Sufferers of frequent coital headaches may also obtain a positive response to migraine preventive medicines, such as beta blockers or verapamil. Non-steroidal anti inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) such as ibuprofen may similarly be beneficial. Coital headaches and migraines are also more likely to occur if a person is in poor physical health.
However, the cure 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 implies that for some adults, refusing sex may actually be the reason that prevents headache treatment.