About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Tests and diagnosis
By Mayo Clinic staff
Brain imaging
Your doctor will likely recommend brain imaging.
- Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). An MRI of the brain can help detect any underlying causes for your headache. During the MRI exam, a magnetic field and radio waves are used to create cross-sectional images of the structures within your brain.
- Computerized tomography (CT). In some cases, especially if your headache occurred less than 48 hours beforehand, a CT scan of your brain may be done. CT uses an X-ray unit that rotates around your body and a computer to create cross-sectional images of your brain and head.
Angiograms
Your doctor may also order a cerebral angiogram, a test that can visualize the neck and brain arteries. It involves threading a thin, flexible tube through a blood vessel, usually starting in the groin, to an artery in your neck. Contrast material is injected into the tube to allow an X-ray machine to visualize the arteries in your neck and brain.
A less invasive version of this test uses MRI or CT, instead of threading a catheter through your blood vessels.
Spinal tap
Sometimes a spinal tap (lumbar puncture) is needed as well — especially if the headache started abruptly and very recently and brain imaging is normal. With this procedure, the doctor removes a small amount of the fluid that surrounds your brain and spinal cord. The fluid sample can be tested for evidence of bleeding or infection.
- Cutrer FM. Primary headache associated with sexual activity. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index/html. Accessed Dec. 9, 2009.
- Goadsby PJ, et al. Headaches. In: Fauci AS, et al. Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine. 17th ed. New York, N.Y.: The McGraw-Hill Companies; 2008. http://www.accessmedicine.com/content.aspx?aID=2890365. Accessed Dec. 8, 2009.
- Preorgasmic headache. International Headache Society. http://ihs-classification.org/en/02_klassifikation/02_teil1/04.04.01_other.html. Accessed Dec. 9, 2009.
- Larner AJ. Transient acute neurologic sequelae of sexual activity: Headache and amnesia. Journal of Sexual Medicine. 2008;5:284.
- Delasobera BE, et al. Thunderclap headache with orgasm: A case of basilar artery dissection associated with sexual intercourse. The Journal of Emergency Medicine. 2009;Oct. 7:e1. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T8B-4XDCP10-1&_user=130561&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000010878&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=130561&md5=b63b03a87829d9e5828c5ac9921ab3e5. Accessed Dec. 12, 2009.
- Bartleson JD (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. Dec. 22, 2009.
Find Mayo Clinic on