Can Your Penis Make Her Sick?

A healthy hump can do wonders for your well-being: Sex can boost your immunity, relieve stress, dull pain, and even help you sleep better. But a cure-all roll in the hay can actually cause some women to come down with ailments far worse than just being lovesick. Your penis can do serious damage to her—and not in the good way. See how taking her to bed may leave her bedridden.

1. Orgasm Overload

Yep, you really can deliver too big of an O: “After intense, multi-faceted levels of stimulation—like clitoral, vaginal, sometimes even rectal, all at once—women can experience an autonomic nervous system overload,” says Jennifer Berman, M.D., director of The Berman Women's Wellness Center in Los Angeles and cohost of The Doctors. Your partner's body releases neurochemicals while her blood vessels dilate, causing her to feel lightheaded, dizzy, or nauseous, Dr. Berman explains. And the same thing can happen to men. In fact, researchers have reported a similar male-dominant phenomenon called post-orgasmic illness syndrome, where guys experience flu-like symptoms up to weeks after an orgasm! (Check out our story, The Orgasm Flu.) 

2. Depression

Sex should be a mood booster, but roughly one-third of women admit to having felt depressed at least once after getting down, according to a 2011 Australian study. Don't take it personally: About 10 percent of women regularly feel sad, anxious, regretful, or irritable after some perfectly pleasing lovemaking, probably because of the hormonal shift post-orgasm, researchers speculate.

3. Headaches

You want it to be mind-blowing, not head-splitting: Sex can actually trigger horrible migraines in both men and women. The International Headache Society reports two types of headaches with sexual activity (HSAs): The first—Type I—are pre-orgasmic, where pressure builds along with sexual excitement. Type II HSAs are explosive pains that occur with or right after climaxing. A 2012 study in the British Journal of Medical Practitioners reported that migraine sufferers are most likely to experience this pain with pleasure, and that it affects roughly 1 in 100 people. (See more Crazy Reasons You Have a Headache.)