Sept. 16, 2008
Woman Suffers Orgasm-Related Stroke
Rare Sex-Related Strokes Occur When Several Risk Factors Converge
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(AP)
Sex- and orgasm-triggered strokes in relatively young women and men are rare, but not unheard of. They require a combination of factors and events not unusual in themselves, but which are highly unlikely to occur at the same time.
The 35-year-old woman's symptoms were typical of this unusual kind of "cryptogenic" stroke, says Jose Biller, MD, professor and chair of the neurology department at Loyola University, Chicago.
"This young woman ... while having intercourse had numbness on the left side of her face, slurred speech, and weakness in her left arm," Biller tells WebMD. "When she was transferred to our care six hours after onset, she was completely unable to move her left arm, her face was paralyzed, her speech was garbled, and she was in a state of panic."
It was too late to inject the woman with the clot-busting drug tPA, which must be given within three hours of a stroke. So Biller's team quickly ran a catheter from an artery in the woman's groin up into her brain to find the blood clot by angiography. Once it was found, they had only one option: to apply tPA directly to the clot.
It was a risky decision. "We did this with a lot of sweat," Biller says.
The woman's symptoms began to improve almost immediately; within an hour she was out of the woods and within 12 hours the symptoms were almost gone. Today she is well, with only an almost imperceptible fold in the skin under her nose and slight loss of dexterity in her left hand.
Stroke From Sex
Why did sex trigger this young woman's stroke? She shared one thing in common with six other young people who suffered sex-related strokes: a small opening in the wall between the two upper chambers of her heart.
One in four adults has this minor heart defect, called a patent foramen ovale or PFO. A PFO allows some blood to flow from the right side of the heart to the left side. This blood bypasses the lung and goes straight to the brain.
Most people with a PFO have no symptoms and don't know they have it. But 40% of people who suffer a cryptogenic stroke -- stroke of no known cause -- have a PFO.
Blood flow through a PFO increases when a person strains, such as bearing down during a bowel movement or breathing out with the mouth closed and nostrils pinched shut.
It also happens during sex, particularly during orgasm, says Brett L. Cucchiara, MD, director of the Penn Stroke Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Cucchiara was not involved in the Biller report, but studied two cases of sex-related stroke in 2006.
"In one of the cases we presented, it is a little embarrassing, one woman had stroke onset coincident with orgasm and having this sort of spontaneous guttural utterance or moan," Cucchiara tells WebMD.
But just having a PFO isn't enough to cause a stroke. A person also must have a blood clot, and that blood clot must break loose and enter the heart just in time to be sucked through the PFO during sex.
Normally a small blood clot would simply get stuck in the lungs and dissolve. But a blood clot that passes through a PFO can lodge in the brain and cause a stroke.
Biller's team did indeed find that their patient had a small blood clot in her leg, probably as a side effect of the oral contraceptives she used for birth control.
"This is a rare occurrence," Biller stresses.
"The vast, vast, vast majority of people with PFOs go through life and never have any problems," Cucchiara says. "You have to keep this risk of stroke during sex in perspective. The risk is very low.
"If you develop sudden neurological symptoms during sex, it could be a stroke and you need to seek help urgently and go to the emergency room," Cucchiara says.
"But you should not spend a lot of time worrying about this. Even if you have a PFO, of all the things to worr about in life, this ranks near the bottom in risk."
There are devices available for closing PFOs. But Biller and Cucchiara both note that doctors currently don't recommend this procedure -- even for most people who have already suffered a stroke.
That recommendation didn't convince Biller's young patient.
"She was scared to death, and she and her boyfriend and family were pushing us very hard to close the defect, so that is what we did," Biller says. "So she had the device implanted to close the PFO."
Biller's report appears in the September issue of the Journal of Stroke
and Cerebrovascular Diseases.
By Daniel DeNoon
Reviewed by Louise Chang
©2005-2008 WebMD, LLC. All rights reserved.
The secrets of tennis legend 
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See all 67 CommentsIn Georgia, I took a course for certification as an EMT. In that course, we were told to say "brain attack" instead of stroke. It helps people to understand that a stroke is a blood clot- like many "heart attack"s and can be reversed with medication.
There is also a good testimony on YouTube from user finalcall07 on how the Lord completely repaired his heart after a single all-night prayer session. His case is documented before and after at the hospital.
Yesterday, the devil came here. Right here. Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of.
Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.
CBS uses the word o r g a s m in the headline but censors it when I use it in my post?
Utterly absurd.....
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there''s one worse that that.
you can''t even type the word S E X on here.
CBS uses the word o r g a s m in the headline but censors it when I use it in my post?
Utterly abrurd.....
Posted by formrusmcsgt at 07:58 AM : Sep 18, 2008
watch out, you don''t want to offend God while he enjoys driving his pick up truck listening to country music, getting drunk and watching his p o r n o while he writes the sermon for next week.
CBS uses the word o r g a s m in the headline but censors it when I use it in my post?
Utterly abrurd.....
I was stationed in Japan at the time and had fallen for a Japanese girl. We took a house and were planning to be married.
She had an undetected anurism which let go during an *** and underwent 9 hours of brain surgery.
She survived but was left with the mentality of a 7 or 8 year-old.
Truly, truly sad.....
breathless, don''''t you?
Posted by erasmus81 at 03:49 PM : Sep 17, 2008
Yes my love.
Posted by erasmus81 at 03:34 PM : Sep 17, 2008
Only speaking the truth sweet lips, that tongue of yours leaves me "Breathless."
Posted by AJMarine111 at 03:20 PM : Sep 17, 2008
That''s very sweet of you to say AJMarine.
I didn''''''''t think so."
Posted by AJMarine111 at 10:36 PM : Sep 16, 2008
I don''''t think that the "possibility" of having a stroke would be enough for anyone to give up having "mind blowing" s-e-x with you, AJMarine.
Posted by erasmus81 at 02:01 AM : Sep 17, 2008
Erasmus, my love,.......a simple kiss from you is enough to give me a stroke.
The PFO can create strokes in many different circumstances including having a bowel movement (another embarrassing activity to say you had a stroke from)...
The fact from this article that everyone needs to take from it is that if you have "stroke" type symptoms during an activity such as intercourse or having a bowel movement - you need to go to the hospital to be evaluated for a stroke as time is of the essence.
The most important part of this article is that the woman was young and healthy and many people who are young and healthy will not even consider that a stroke may be possible.
One thing the article does not mention is that a person can also have a heart attack or other ischemic type events that can be life threatening during similar activities.
My suggestion is to pay attention to the "valsalva effect" which is what the writer describes as "when a person strains, such as bearing down during a bowel movement or breathing out with the mouth closed and nostrils pinched shut."
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