Doctors have urged Americans to seek help for a little-known sexual problem: sex-induced migraines, known medically as coital headaches.
The warnings came in the wake of the alarming case of a 61-year-old woman who suffered a massive brain hemorrhage immediately after having sex.
The woman visited a South Dakota emergency room suffering from vision loss and a debilitating headache, doctors at the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine wrote. in a case report.
He reported that the headache started during sexual intercourse and did not subside even after taking three aspirin. In fact, she got worse: she started losing sight.
This scan shows clotted blood, called a hematoma, in the South Dakota patient’s brain.
Initially, doctors believed it was a simple case of “sexual headaches,” which affect up to 200,000 Americans.
The cause of the problem is not fully understood, but it is believed to be a type of exertional headache, which occurs due to increased blood pressure during activities such as running, lifting weights, or sneezing.
The dilation of blood vessels is believed to tense the muscles of the head, neck and shoulders, causing headaches, explained Dr. Néstor Gálvez-Jiménez, a neurologist at the Cleveland Clinic.
While very rare, doctors believe this pressure could cause a vessel to burst in people with unhealthy blood flow, causing a brain hemorrhage.
Doctors in South Dakota performed a brain scan on their patient and discovered a large mass of blood compressing his occipital lobe, the region of the brain responsible for sight.
They concluded that he had suffered a hemorrhagic stroke, also known as a cerebral hemorrhage. The other most common form of stroke is the ischemic type, in which a blood clot blocks or plugs an artery leading to the brain.
Such a brain hemorrhage can occur when an increase in blood pressure during sexual intercourse causes blood vessels previously weakened by existing conditions, such as heart disease, to burst, Dr. Hafez Mohammad Ammar Abdullah, a medical specialist, wrote in South Dakota hospital intern. the case report.
Surprisingly, the woman survived and made a full recovery without any treatment.
Still, doctors have urged people with sex-related headaches to look for underlying problems that could result in a lethal event.
As many as one in 12 patients who come to the emergency room with a brain hemorrhage say they were having sex when the pain started, Dr. Ammar Abdullah wrote.
He and his colleagues advise that “all patients with a severe sexual headache that does not resolve should be evaluated to rule out any underlying secondary causes.”
Sexual headaches can occur at any age, but in this case study, it occurred in a 61-year-old woman.
To be diagnosed with coital headache it is necessary to have experienced a severe headache at least twice during sexual activity.
The pain must last at least 24 hours and must not be attributable to other conditions such as chronic migraines.
Sexual headaches can occur at any time during sexual intercourse, but usually increase in intensity as sexual arousal increases.
They can occur at any age, but since circulation problems tend to worsen with ageThe problem may be more common in older people.
If you have sexual headaches, you can try taking over-the-counter pain relievers before you get lucky, Dr. Galves-Jiménez said, although he acknowledged it might be difficult to know beforehand.
Unfortunately, in other cases, wrote Dr. Ammar Abdullah, abstinence is the only option.