I have heard of mind blowing orgasms before but I never took it so literally that I had to go and get my actual brain scanned!
A few weeks ago, I was having sex with my husband when right before orgasm, a pain ripped through my head unlike anything I have ever experienced.
On a pain scale of 1 to 10, this was an absolute 10 out of 10 stunner, which left me curled up in a foetal position on my bed, grasping my temples wondering if I was having a brain haemorrhage.
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My husband was understandably a little shook but also felt completely helpless, unable to do anything to assist. He peppered me with questions about what I needed, hoping he could fetch me something to help but at that moment I could barely respond.
Eventually the pain subsided enough for me to ask for painkillers, panadol, ibuprofen, whatever we had that would hopefully put an end to the knife-like stabbing sensation I was experiencing.
I took two ibuprofen and then laid back, my husband massaging my head to help relieve the tension.
When I woke up the next morning, the headache was still there, albeit not as intense as the night before, but it was persistent. Sometimes a low level throbbing, sometimes back to sharp stabbing pain, but always there. It wasn’t in any particular area, moving from above my right eyebrow to the base of my skull, sometimes feeling like a tight rubber band had been put around my head.
I gave it a day or two and when the headache didn’t pass; I went to a GP to try and suss it out.
He asked me a stack of questions about when it happened, what I was doing at the time, how intense the pain was and how it was feeling now, to which I had to sheepishly explain at exactly what moment during that particular sexual encounter the splitting headache occurred.
He thought he might know what it was, but we had to rule out some other factors first. We had to make sure that one of the main causes of this type of headache, a brain bleed, wasn’t in play. So he ordered a brain scan, and I popped off to get an MRI to rule that out.
Luckily the scan came back clean, but it still didn’t explain the horrendous sexy time headaches.
My GP then told me about sex headaches, sometimes referred to as thunderclap headache also known as RCVS, reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome.
It occurs primarily in men, and is characterised by a sudden, severe headache. It’s a rare but often quite harmless type of headache that occurs during sex at, or right before orgasm.
There are two types, one is the orgasm headache when it’s a sudden severe pain in your head before or during sexual release, the other is a sexual benign headache, which is a dull pain in your head and neck that builds the more sexually aroused you are.
Some may have the misfortune of experiencing both at the same time and they can last a moment, a few hours, days or, as in my case, weeks or months after they occur.
Research into the phenomena shows up to half of all those who suffer an orgasm headache will continue having them over a six-month period, 40 per cent are chronic and can continue happening for more than a year.
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So what causes it?
A sexual benign headache happens because sexual arousal makes the muscles in your head and neck contract, causing the head pain. An orgasm headache is the spike in blood pressure at the moment of release that makes the vessels that supply blood to your brain contract.
I had never heard of orgasm headaches before but it seemed to fit my symptoms, so I thought I should test the theory.
When I got home, I got my trusty toy out from the bedside drawer and attempted to reach orgasm, Lo-and-behold, right before I got there, my head decided to play like it was physically cracking into two pieces and I had to stop before I thought it would break for real.
So this is not great. Will I ever have another orgasm again? What if this is it for me? What if I’ve had my last ever?
The GP advised me to be lazier in the bedroom. Put my feet up and let my partner do the hard work, which I was not opposed to, to be honest, but it’s not ideal.
So we kept checking in to see if it was still happening and I’m happy to say that after two months it seems to have resolved itself.
I do still live with a bit of fear that it will happen again but until then I plan on enjoying each and every orgasm like it might be my last!
Feature Image: Supplied.
