Being sick really sucks. Being really sick because you’ve had an orgasm really sucks. Doctors now think they know the reason for illness, but how does a man become allergic to his own semen?
It’s the stuff nightmares are made of: when the part of life that’s supposed to make you feel supreme instead makes you feel violently ill. Doctors have been studying the physical ailments of men who have experienced a litany of ailments after ejaculation during sex – a range of nasty side effects like fever, weakness and exhaustion, headaches, disordered speech, irritability, forgetfulness, nightmares, and even swollen lips and throat.
One of the study participants says he’s been having the problem since age 19, for 31 years now. The symptoms had become so severe that he and his wife actually had to plan intercourse to fall on a Friday – in order to allow two full days for recovery, before he needed to head back to work.
The Journal of Sexual Medicine says Dutch doctors have got the answer, and they’re calling the problem “Post Orgasmic Illness Syndrome” (POIS). In 2002, the doctors thought “Post Orgasmic Illness Syndrome” might have a psychological root or could be linked to a syndrome called “dhat.” Reported in men from India and Sri Lanka, “dhat” syndrome leaves men fearful of ejaculating.
But then doctors in the UK noted something else: in two men experiencing the problem, one improved dramatically when taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs right before, and for two days after, ejaculating. Positive response to the drugs led docs to think there may be a problem caused by a immune system reaction.
Dutch doctors realized that the source of the problem in “Post Orgasmic Illness Syndrome” may instead lie in a man’s reaction to his own semen. As it turns out, that hunch is right. The testing, to verify the cause of the painful “Post Orgasmic Illness Syndrome” is much easier than its treatment. Testing, to confirm POIS as the illness, involves pretty straightforward skin prick tests that are commonly used to test for allergies and allergic reactions. When doctors performed skin prick tests on the group of 33 “Post Orgasmic Illness Syndrome” patients, lab results showed 29 of the 33 men to have experienced signs of classic allergic reactions. In short, they’re allergic to their own semen – and ejaculating their own semen is making them sick.
Whew. Well, that part was easy. Here’s the hard part: treatment is almost as bizarre as the condition. Doctors are treating “Post Orgasmic Illness Syndrome” in the same way that allergists often use to treat food allergies: it’s called “hyposensitization,” a treatment that uses the allergen, itself, to treat the allergic condition.
The drawback: it’s not a “wham, bam, thank you ma’am” type of scenario. Doctors have been trying to get their 50-year-old patient functioning back to normal, for about three years now. Similar to allergy treatments, treating POIS involves through “hyposensitization” includes a long series of treatments to desensitize: the semen is first diluted 40,000 times, then the guy gets inoculated, and repeat -- over a period of 31 months, the process is gradually worked up to a semen dilution of 1-to-20.
Doctors aren’t offering a miracle – while the Journal says the process is working to treat “Post Orgasmic Illness Syndrome,” the symptoms after ejaculation don’t go away altogether, but only become milder and last for a shorter time.
Sex may not be out-of-this-world but at least it won’t suck to such a degree.
Scientists don’t know, entirely, why a man is allergic to his own semen. Doctors believe it may be related to the male’s semen contacting immune cells known as T-lymphocytes which, in turn, sets off an immune warning. With repeated exposure over time, doctors believe the reaction becomes intense.
treating “Post Orgasmic Illness Syndrome” isn’t infrequent – it happens with every orgasm. Nothing like that to reduce stamina. Amazingly, one of the guys in the study has two kids.