Lucinda Allen, 38, told The Sun that five years ago, she noticed a sharp pain in her head immediately after an orgasm, just above her right eye. "I’ve experienced what’s known as post-orgasm ‘thunderclap’ head pain all through my adult life, so I really wasn’t worried," she said. "The pain I usually have after orgasm is a bit like brain-freeze—quite painful but never lasts long."
[post_ads_2]But this time, the pain didn’t go away. Instead, it was so awful and persistent that Allen said she was "writhing on the bed in agony and crying" and was taken to the hospital. It crossed her mind that she might be having a brain hemorrhage, but after that, she said, “it was a blur.”
On the way to the hospital, Allen, who was 26 weeks pregnant at the time and had gestational diabetes, lost the ability to speak. She was eventually put into a medically-induced coma and had brain surgery. Doctors discovered that Allen had suffered a major stroke, followed by four smaller ones.
Six days after Allen was brought out of the coma, her daughter was delivered via C-section. Allen now uses a wheelchair due to the paralysis on her left side, and she's sharing her experience to try to warn people that, in very rare cases, extreme post-orgasm pain can be an early warning sign of a brain hemorrhage.
Brain hemorrhage is an uncommon cause of stroke, especially during sex.
According to the National Stroke Association, brain hemorrhages that cause a stroke (known as a hemorrhagic stroke) are rare, accounting for only about 15 percent of strokes. They occur when either a brain aneurysm bursts or a weakened blood vessel leaks. Blood then spills into or around a person’s brain, creating swelling and pressure and damaging brain cells, the National Stroke Association says.As you’ve probably guessed based on personal experience and that of your friends, it’s not common to have a stroke from an orgasm. “Bleeding into the brain after orgasm is known to happen, but it is rare,” Amit Sachdev, M.D., an assistant professor and director of the Division of Neuromuscular Medicine at Michigan State University, tells SELF. “Every neurologist has probably seen this kind of story once in their career—a patient having sex and something neurologic happened.” (Thinking about how long doctors practice and how many patients they see helps put this rarity into context.)
[post_ads_2]
When something like this happens, it’s typically because someone has an underlying condition, like high blood pressure, neuroscientist and certified sex therapist Nan Wise, Ph.D., tells SELF. During orgasm, your blood pressure shoots up temporarily, she says. While the increased blood flow to your brain is usually a good thing, if you have a blood vessel blockage or weakened artery wall, it can cause a serious issue like a stroke, Dr. Wise says.
The orgasm aspect is intriguing, but women’s health expert Jennifer Wider, M.D., tells SELF that it may have just been coincidence. Sex is considered mild to moderate exercise when compared to other more rigorous forms of exercise that also get your blood pumping, she points out, making it likely that Allen could have had a similar outcome while taking an indoor cycling class or something of the sort—it just happened to occur when she orgasmed.
Allen said she had suffered from sex headaches for years, and that’s an important link. There are a few kinds of sex headaches (also known as coital cephalgia), Dr. Wise says. One causes pain that builds up over sex, another causes a “thunder clap” headache that comes on suddenly during sex or orgasm and dissipates fairly quickly, and another can be pain that starts shortly after the sex is over.
Sex headaches are well-described in medical literature, Dr. Sachdev says—doctors just don’t have hard numbers on how often they happen. One estimate is that 1 in 100 adults have experienced sex headaches, but that's not a certainty. “As you can imagine, it is hard to identify exactly how many people have sex headaches but, in general, it is thought of as a rare headache disorder,” he says. “It is even more rare for bleeding to occur following an orgasm.”
As Dr. Wise notes, "the vast majority turn out to be benign." Still, she recommends getting yourself examined by a doctor if you suddenly experience any form of sex headache. Again, it’s likely just that—a sex headache—but it's always good to be sure.
Let us repeat: Most sex headaches are absolutely harmless in the long-term.
[post_ads]But if you experience a sex headache and you’re worried it could actually be a stroke, Dr. Wise recommends seeing whether you can do the following: smile (a crooked smile is a warning sign of a stroke), raise your arms (strokes often impact the function on one side of your body), say a simple sentence (failure to be able to do so is a common stroke sign), and keep your tongue straight (if It falls to one side or is anything other than straight, there's a problem). If your partner is the one complaining of head pain post-sex, check whether they can pass the aforementioned tests. If anything seems worrisome, call 911 immediately.Overall, chances are incredibly high that you don't have to worry about sex-related strokes at all. “For the average person, enjoy your orgasms and don't try too hard to decrease the risk of rare events that almost never occur,” Dr. Sachdev says. But if you know that you have a history of high blood pressure or brain bleeding, it’s a good idea to check in with your doctor about vigorous activity, including sex.
