What Are Coital Headaches?
Orgasm is usually an enjoyable and positive activity for most people, but it can become less enjoyable for those who find that it starts coital headaches. For these people, sexual activity of any kind can cause coital headache attacks.
Medically speaking, 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 grouping them as well; for instance by severity or by area.
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 called coital cephalalgia or sexual headaches, is a rare, but painful 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 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 extreme 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 afflict about one percent of the population, although this number could be a lot higher because of people being embarrassed to talk about it.
Coital headaches are benign, meaning that they cause 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 causes of headaches, such as brain tumours and blood clots. However, the doctor can do rather little to help by way of therapy. He may suggest a complete abstention from any kind of sexual activity for a period varying from days to weeks or he may recommend trying taking medication some time before sexual foreplay begins.
Some of the headache medications that can be taken are indomethacin, imitrex, zomig and propranolol, although if the headaches persist, your doctor may 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.
Now the good news is that most headaches related to sexual activities are not at all serious in nature. In deed, research actually suggests that orgasm can relieve headaches and even migraine in some cases. This implies that for some adults, refusing sex may actually be the cause of their headache in the first place.
If you suffer from migraine or headaches, you really ought to definitely visit our website on Stopping Headaches. Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service