[Adam Bathgate]

Hi Mixertee,

For me I found that it was best to lay of any kind of sex for a few weeks as during the first few weeks headaches were liable to reoccur. It's been a year and a half now and apart from one migraine episode I've been clear. I do though have a weekly massage, and monthly visit to the osteopath. I do wonder whether you were dehydrated....

All the best,

Adam

[Adam Bathgate]

Just thought I would post an update. I am pleased to say that I have not had a thunderclap or thunderclap type headache for a couple of years now. I did though recently start to develop cough headaches instead! These have now gone away and I put this down to having a course of deep tissue massage, which made me realise how stiff and tight my back was. Cough and sex headaches seem to be related and I think they are both connected to having very tight back muscles. I would therefore highly recommend deep tissue massage as a potential cure.

[whataheadache]

Hi all, first-time poster here because I (43M) recently had my first "thunderclap headache during orgasm" and this thread seemed to be the most active discussion online about it. I'm posting to encourage people who experience to go to the doctor/ER IMMEDIATELY. Based on initially reading this thread after it happened to me, I thought I could ignore it and it would be OK, but it turns out I could have been really not OK.

Last month, at the moment of climax, I experienced a really strange headache, not a "thunderclap" necessarily but an instant-onset weird headache that felt like the top half of my brain was on fire. Lasted about 30 minutes and then totally went away.

A few days later, the next time I climaxed, I felt a much stronger instant headache at the moment of climax. It was like being hit in the head with a hammer, localized to the bottom left part of my brain but soon spread to a full-head headache with a stabbing pain in that one bottom left part. That headache did not go away and was by far the worst headache I've ever had. (I don't think I've ever had a migraine.)

The next day the headache continued from the moment I woke up. I just took ibuprofen but it was by far the worst headache I've had, and ibuprofen wasn't doing much. I was very sensitive to sound and light which made the headache much worse. It also got worse if I laid down.

The following day, I saw a doctor who said it could be a benign sexual headache, but there are other things it could be - potentially rupturing blood vessel, stroke, etc. He referred me to a CT scan and said if that didn't show anything, just drink fluids and take it easy. The (non-contrast) CT scan came back clear.

A couple days later, I went to my regular GP for a second opinion and he told me to go to the hospital ER to be safe. This was now 5 days after the thunderclap headache and I still had the splitting headache 24/7 and also now had occasional strange neck pains.

The hospital staff took my symptoms as potentially very serious and I was given triage priority. They performed a spinal tap, a contrast CT, and a follow-up MRI, and confirmed that I had experienced what is called a "vertebral artery dissection". Basically one of the four main arteries to the brain got a tear in one of its inner walls, leaking blood to the outer walls. They put me on anti-coagulant meds and better pain medications and they kept me there for a few days.

The doctors explained to me that while the majority of these incidents are basically benign and will heal themselves without intervention, the same symptoms can be several things, some of which are potentially fatal. The MRI specifically was to rule out a "subarachnoid hemorrhage" or whether I had some mini-strokes in the incident, either of which can be very serious. The anti-coagulants are to prevent a clot turning into a stroke, which apparently can occur after an artery dissection.

My prognosis is that it will be fully healed in a few months, and in the interim, the doctors said no diet or behaviour changes are necessary other than avoiding very strenuous exercise. I've been going celibate just to be safe but I think I'll try not doing that this weekend if I can convince my GF it won't kill me. It's now been a bit over a month and the headaches are still here but maybe 5% of what they were in that first week.

So I'm just here for future people like me, and my advice is - get it checked out ASAP. The vast majority of cases seem to be benign and resolve themselves, but in a small number of cases, it can be extremely serious. I wish I had gone in as soon as it happened, but I'm glad I didn't ignore it. I recommend being better safe than sorry if you have a thunderclap headache for any reason.

Hope this helps some souls in the future who experience these symptoms!