It is commonly believed that sex drive is reduced by headaches, and sexual intercourse can cause specific types of headaches. Previous research has suggested that sexual intercourse may alleviate the pain of migraine in some patients.
Researchers from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, USA, tested the theory that migraine and sexual desire may both be associated with serotonin. Evidence for this is the reduced libido that often accompanies depression treatment with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, which increases brain levels of serotonin, whereas migraine is associated with reduced serotonin levels.
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To investigate this complex relationship, the researchers recruited 59 adults who had at least 10 headaches annually. 23 subjects (7 men and 16 women) were classified as having migraine, and 36 (18 men and 18 women) as having tension-type headache. The subjects completed an inventory, which included nine items measuring desire for others and five measuring solitary sexual desire. This allowed the subjects to rate how much they think about sex and how much they desire sex. The men reported about 24-percent higher sex drive than women and the difference between migraine and tension-type headache was almost equivalent – 20 percent.
Thus, women with migraines reported about the same relative levels of sex drive as men with tension type headaches. On the nine-point scale the subjects specifically rated their own sexual desire compared with that of others of the same age and sex. The migraine patients reported the highest level (5), which is above the expected median (4) for this.
It can be hypothesised that a serotonergic link may be implicated in both migraine headaches and sexual desire. Also, serotonin receptors appear to be involved in several aspects of sexual functioning.
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