Sex can be mind-blowing – but not always in a good way, as scientists have found it can wipe your memory.
They cite the case of a 54-year-old woman who arrived at a hospital in Washington DC in a state of panic because she’d just been intimate with her husband and immediately lost all recollection of the previous 24 hours.
This rare condition is called ‘transient global amnesia’ and is always temporary, but because it’s so severe, it can be very distressing, say researchers.
Memorable? Sometimes sex can lead to a severe, but temporary, loss of recollection
The brain doesn’t suffer any harm, though, according to one neurologist not involved in the case. Indeed, brains scans of the woman at Georgetown University Hospital showed no damage had occurred.
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Very little is known about what triggers the condition, though some doctors believe that misfiring valves in the neck may be the cause.
Instead of closing shut, they are remaining open to allow pressure in the stomach to push oxygen-poor blood that should be seeping downwards to the heart, back up through the jugular veins and in to the part of the brain that controls memories.
Sebastian Ameriso, from the Institute for Neurological Research in Buenos Aires, told Livescience: ‘We don't know very much about the cause. It causes a lot of alarm, but this is not a stroke or an event that causes damage to the brain. It's almost always very benign.’
The 54-year-old woman, whose case was reported in The Journal of Emergency Medicine, will have been just one of three to five people per 100,000 a year affected by transient global amnesia.
In the majority of cases it takes just a few hours for the memory to return.
Exerting yourself in other ways - such as weight-lifting or even going to the loo - can also lead to transient global amnesia.
And it’s the older generation, those in their 50s and 60s, who are most at risk.
Ameriso urges anyone with sudden memory loss to seek medical help as it could be a symptom of something far more serious.
BY TED THORNHILL
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