A woman suffered a stroke due to her imminent orgasm while receiving oral sex from her partner.
The woman, a 44-year-old from west London, was receiving cunnilingus but just as she was about to orgasm, she passed out in the bedroom.
She was rushed to a hospital where doctors found a blood vessel had burst inside her skull.
Medics at West Middlesex University Hospital in Isleworth, west London, said the patient was unconscious for three minutes after first suffering a headache during oral sex.
Her partner, whose gender was not revealed, said they noticed during sex that “her body was stiff”.
Doctors this week wrote in a British Medical Journal case report: “On closer history taking, the patient reported nearing orgasm while receiving oral sex from her partner before losing consciousness.
“Her partner estimated she was unconscious for two to three minutes, with no convulsive activity reported. She had otherwise been well preceding the event.”
Doctors initially thought she had suffered a seizure. They sent the woman for a CT scan and it revealed a “trace of acute subarachnoid blood” — a type of stroke that causes bleeding in the space around the brain. The patient’s bleed was caused by a small aneurysm, a bulge on a blood vessel like a balloon or bubble that bursts.
In the report, the doctors acknowledged that sexual activity has been “well-described” as a cause of blood vessels bursting because it increases blood pressure. But they said past studies have only seen this effect during full-blown sex, rather than during oral sex.
They wrote: “Older studies with [artery] monitoring during coitus demonstrate that during sexual activity blood pressure, as well as heart rate, is very [liable to change], with particular rises during orgasm.”
The woman was revealed to be a regular smoker, occasional drinker, asthmatic and had suffered malaria in her brain in her 20s, but these were not directly linked to her stroke in the report.
The woman spent two weeks in hospital in October 2018 before being discharged. Four months after her ordeal, the woman was reported to be well and still having check ups at the hospital.
