Crap. Sex + orgasm can = Stroke. Bad deal.
By Tom Miller — Written on Sep 15, 2008
Eeeeeesh. Talk about a buzz kill. According to WebMD, a woman from Illinois suffered a relatively minor stroke after she and her dude finished humping. Despite the stroke not being a massive one, it was still serious enough to be called life-threatening. Evidently, the type of stroke is crypogenic (apparently unknown causes) and typically involves the confluence of a number of disparate factors. A number of strokes occur because of a small hole between 2 upper chambers of the heart and a blood clot being "thrown" to the brain during times of great exertion. Combine that with the fact that some versions of the pill lend themselves to causing blood clots and there is a very rare recipe for trouble.
In the case of the Illinois woman, it turns out that she did have a blood clot in her leg and the genetic heart perforation (it's called a patent foramen ovale or PFO). Because of how scared she was after her recovery began, she demanded that a tiny device be implanted to close her PFO.
It's funny (strange not ha ha funny), we were discussing this with a friend the other day and wondered if anyone had ever had an orgasm triggered stroke. Our conversation had more to do with in happening to a dude, naturally. Because you always (occasionally) hear about a guy going out with a sex-related heart attack (Matthew McConaughey's dad is a member of the die hard club). But you never hear about strokes or embolisms taking someone down. Some guys get pretty physical while performing coitus (Shaq soaks the mattress) and it seems like vigor and rapid reallocation of blood can have some serious health consequences.
We've heard of women getting numb after vigorous sex but never anything (from a cardiovascular standpoint) more serious than that. We suppose that this proves that the female orgasm exists but is it too dangerous for the average woman to experiment with*?
*Note: We kiiiiiid, we've heard of women having orgasms before and we know that there have only been a few proven cases of women having sex-related strokes, particularly in young women. So reach for that brass ring, ladies, and hold onto your f*cking hats.