Email a Friend
Print ArticleMigraines & Headaches Health Center
This article is from the WebMD Feature Archive
Are Migraine Sufferers Sexier?
If you're a migraine sufferer, sex may be the last thing on your mind -- especially when painful migraine symptoms force you to seek solitude in a dark, quiet room. Yet new findings suggest that sex may be linked to migraines and headache relief.
According to a study published in the journal Headache, young adult migraine sufferers (men and women) reported having 20% more sexual desire than other adults who had headaches (but not migraine headaches).
This study found that migraine headaches and sexual desire are at least partially affected by serotonin, a neurotransmitter in the body that has a "feel good," calming effect. With migraine headaches, there are lower levels of serotonin, yet serotonin is released in abundance during sexual activity that leads to orgasm.
How Is Serotonin Linked to Migraine Sufferers?
Serotonin has been shown to have a major effect on mood and emotion. In the body, serotonin neurons are connected to many physiological functions including sleep, wakefulness, eating, sexual activity, impulsivity -- even memory and learning.
Along with migraine headaches, low levels of serotonin in the brain are associated with clinical depression, sleep, and pain disorders such as fibromyalgia, says pain specialist Harris H. McIlwain, MD, a Tampa-based rheumatologist and author of the book Diet For A Pain-Free Life.
In addition, when estrogen levels plummet for women before menstruation, levels of serotonin also change. As a matter of fact, serotonin deficiency is related to premenstrual syndrome (PMS), menstrual cramps, increased pain, and eating disorders -- all common problems in women.
Doctors often prescribe antidepressants to raise levels of serotonin, McIlwain tells WebMD, while triptans, a newer class of drugs that treat migraine headaches, work by imitating serotonin and stimulating receptors in the brain.
What Causes Migraine Headaches?
Experts are not completely sure what causes migraine headaches. According to Howard S. Smith, MD, director of pain medicine, Albany Medical Center and professor of anesthesiology at Albany Medical Center, migraines appear to be the result of a complex cyclic contact between the cranial blood vessels and the trigeminal nerve.
In his book The Women's Guide to Ending Pain, Smith explains that with a migraine, some "triggers" such as food, stress, fatigue, or poor sleep, activate neurons that are in charge of releasing a selection of neuropeptides -- substance P and neurokinin A.
Substance P helps nervous system cells send messages to each other about painful stimuli. It's thought that when substance P levels are elevated in the body, they may produce higher levels of pain. The release of these chemicals causes an increase in blood flow to the brain. The distended blood vessels and inflammatory response stimulate the trigeminal nerve to send out impulses back to the brain for processing, resulting in a migraine headache.
del.icio.us
Researchers test a device that might stop migraine headaches by sending short bursts of magnetic energy to the brain.
