Sex Sent Me to the ER
Have you experienced a medical emergency caused by sex? This is one of those instances. To finish the story first, let me assure you that all is well now!
My wife was finishing her second explosive orgasm when she experienced what we found out was called a “thunderclap headache”. On a pain scale of 1-10, she said it was a 10. When it happened, she rolled over into the fetal position and grabbed her head. The headache was located in the frontal lobe of her brain or her forehead. As it progressed, the pain wrapped around the back of her head like a band and down to the base of her head at the spinal cord. She had never experienced anything like this before.
The headache began to dissipate a little and she got up and took some ibuprofen. We had planned on going out for dinner, so we went ahead with that. After dinner, the headache became worse. I asked her if she wanted to go to the hospital. Just to give some context, we are both over 65, parents of 3 grown sons, and all 5 of us have been to the ER for various reasons, plus my wife is a nurse, so we are quite familiar with trips to the hospital. She said yes, so off we went.
In the emergency room, the doctor told us that the thunderclap headache can be caused by a brain aneurism and subsequent brain bleed. Here’s the part we didn’t know: the internet doesn’t say it, but you have only 6 hours to get to the hospital for a CT scan to pick up the brain bleed. Otherwise the blood may be reabsorbed and not show up. And if it is an aneurism that has caused it, depending on the severity, treatment is needed immediately.
The CT scan and all other tests they ran that evening came back negative for an aneurism and brain bleed. The ER doctor was stumped. The next option was for a lumbar puncture to completely rule out a brain bleed. After consulting with neurology, though, that was ruled out. My wife was held over for observation, and an MRI was scheduled for the morning, followed by a neurology consult. Again everything that came back was normal, no bleed, no pathology of any type.
During the consult, she was told by the neurologist that they don’t know what caused these episodes during sex, but they occur for both men and women during orgasm. They can reoccur but for most they don’t. And, thankfully, you don’t have to stop having sex. Our neurologist theorizes, but again doesn’t know for sure, that it’s caused by a blood vessel spasm in the brain and clears up by itself.
Moral of the story:
We should have skipped dinner and headed to the hospital when it happened. (Some of you may think we should have called for an ambulance. We live between the fire station and the hospital and can actually make it faster to the hospital than waiting on the ambulance.) We praise God for it turning out the way it did and know that it could have had a very different outcome. If it happens to you, please get to the hospital. Even if it turns out to be nothing, peace of mind and knowing is better than being sorry and wondering “what if?”.
Truly blessed in Texas!
Thank you for sharing this story. That must have been an extremely alarming experience to have come out of nowhere like it did.
It should give us all pause to consider life and all of the things to be thankful for. It's a reminder to us to always remind our loved ones how we feel about them while we can.
And before We complain to consider whether it's even worth using the breath to speak the complaint.
We are told to be thankful in all things.
Thanks for sharing this. We now know to look out for this.
Sometimes sex leads to me taking nitroglycerin during sex or afterwards.
This is scary – my wife has gotten headaches more than a few times after an intense orgasm, but thankfully they subside quickly – fast enough that they don't require treatment (1 minute or so), but still scary and can dampen the moment. She had to have a couple of scans for another condition, and nothing showed up. If it happened often I would be more worried, but these headaches seem to correlate more to stress than anything else….
Whew, thank the Lord that it didn't go in a bad direction! Pain or other symptoms that come out of nowhere are scary! A handful of times, I have felt very depressed suddenly after masturbating, but from looking at my patterns (I journal my health and my masturbation daily), it was likely cycle-related. I get headaches often and have for years, but thankfully masturbation relieves them almost every time.
I have had those types of headaches, but never related to sex.
———————–
On a brighter note, when I saw the title of this story it brought back a memory.
My first wife and I were fucking missionary style in the middle of the afternoon. (At that time, she and I worked different rotating shifts. Perhaps the lack of opportunities made her more "responsive".)
Anyway, we were fucking so hard that we literally bounced out of bed, flew in the air, and then landed on the floor next to the bed. After checking to make sure that we were OK, we had a really good laugh, and then started fucking even harder on the floor. (Can't fall from there.)
Sex didn't send us to the ER, but it could have! 😉
Another ER story, but not about me.
While stationed overseas, one of my patrol partners had to be carried to a truck that took him to the emergency room. His scrotum has swelled up the size of a volleyball. (YIKES!!) I was not there to see it, but I heard about it from several people.
A week or two later, he and I were on patrol together and I asked him about the incident. He said that he had strained his groin muscle during sex. The muscle strain caused swelling, and some of the fluid had pooled in his scrotum. My buddy told me that the doctor had asked him, "What did you do — try to break it off in there??" :0