TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Can sex really alleviate migraines?
You may not realize that there's a connection between sex and migraines. As a matter of fact, according to recent findings, engaging in sexual activity while experiencing a headache or migraine can have positive results. Yet, research has also found that sexual activity could cause a headache.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Sex can be an efficacious treatment for those who experience headaches or migraines often. (Shutterstock/File)
Y
ou may not realize that there's a connection between sex and migraines. As a matter of fact, according to recent findings, engaging in sexual activity while experiencing a headache or migraine can have positive results. Yet, research has also found that sexual activity could cause a headache.
What’s the connection between sex and curing a headache?
Sex can be an efficacious treatment for those who often have headaches or migraines. This is due to the release of endorphins during sex, especially when reaching orgasm. Endorphins are a natural pain killer in our body. It can help ease pain, including unbearable pain such as that felt while experiencing a migraine or headache. However, this only applies for short intervals.
Migraines disappear during coitus
This is proven by a study conducted by the University of Munster, Germany. The research, published in the journal of International Headache Society Cephalalgia, states that a majority of people with migraines or headaches do not engage in sexual activity during the attack of a migraine. Although, data shows that sexual activity can help reduce or even stop headaches. They also add that sex can put an end to headaches and migraines, even at acute levels.
Distributed randomly to 800 migraine and 200 headache patients, a questionnaire asked them to write down their sexual activity experienced while experiencing a headache or migraine, including the impact influencing the headache or migraine. The results were spot on: more than one-third of migraine patients have engaged in sexual activity while experiencing a migraine, and two-thirds reported healing progress from it. For headaches sufferers, almost one-third of them engage in sexual activity, of which 37 percent reported healing from the condition. Better yet, sexual activity is more popular as a tool of therapy among many male sufferers. However, the remaining 50 percent state that it only worsened their headache.
(Read also: What you need to know about migraines)
Headaches occurs during sex
The International Headache Society’s International Classification of Headache Disorders Second Edition (ICHD-II) acknowledges that headaches can also be caused by sexual activity. There are two types of headaches caused by sexual activity, pre-orgasmic and orgasmic. Many people presume that this is a migraine, but make no mistake, this is a headache.
Pre-orgasmic headache occurs during sexual activity, which is indicated by pain in the head and neck, including the tightening of jaw muscles. Meanwhile, orgasmic headache are far worse, indicated by a sudden attack of a headache during orgasm. Both types of the headaches often occur in men rather than women. Most of the time the headache occurs in short intervals, however 15 percent of those who experienced it say they go through over four hours of headaches, therefore requiring special medication.
Why would sex cause a headache?
Headaches triggered by sexual activity usually occur during sexual arousal and suddenly become intense when reaching orgasm. According to mayoclinic.org, sudden attacks during sexual intercourse are usually linked with: widening of your head’s arteries, abnormal relationship between the veins and arteries in your brain, which injects blood to the space of the spinal fluid and around the brain, bleeding into the arteries headed to the brain, condition of stroke disease, coronary artery diseases, usage of medicine such as contraception pill and inflammation of a certain infection.
However, the condition explained above usually relates to post-coitus headaches accompanied by loss of consciousness, vomiting, stiff neck, other neurological symptoms and other severe illness that can take place over 24 hours. (kes)
