Today in Weird patienta surprising allergy that complicates the romantic relationships of a 27-year-old young man.
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William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Minnesota, welcomes a 27-year-old man who is visibly in great shape. The reason for his consultation baffles Andrew Shanholtzer, the intern who takes care of him: every time he ejaculates, whether during sexual intercourse or following solitary masturbation, he is as if taken by a raging flu. ! His eyeseyes itchy, he sneezes, coughs and his arms become covered with red patches. His lymph nodes are also swollen. The patient says that because of this, he has stopped all sexual activity and making love and refuses to engage in a romantic relationship. According to him, it all started around the age of 18, after epididymitis. With each ejaculation, the symptoms become stronger.
An extremely rare autoallergy
In distress, the doctors at William Beaumont Hospital appear to be the young man’s last hope. He previously consulted three urologists, an ENT specialist, an infectious disease specialist and a allergistallergist ; None have been able to find the origin of their problem. The allergist diagnosed him with hay fever, an allergy to melonmelon and sensitivity to climbing ivy, or poison ivy in English. Nothing that seems to explain why his own orgasms put him in such a state.
His blood tests indicate a level ofIgEIgE very important, a sign that it is indeed an allergic problem. As for the testicles, nothing to report. L’ultrasoundultrasound that he passed did not reveal anything abnormal, his spermogramspermogram either, and its rate of testosteronetestosterone is average. Dr. Shanholtzer and his colleagues see in this young man’s case a rare sicknessrare sicknessbut which has been gaining visibility for twenty years: the syndromesyndrome of post-orgasmic illness. In other words, he is allergic to his own spermsperm ! The clinical description of this astonishing allergy matches the patient’s symptoms: a flu-like syndrome that appears almost immediately after 90% of ejaculations and lasts up to seven days before resolving spontaneously.
Allergic to own bodily fluids
The exact cause of this allergy is still debated. Scientists do not know exactly whether these are the spermsperm where the seminal fluidseminal fluid which provoke it. The testicles are so-called immunoprivileged organs; the blood-testicular barrier isolates them from immune systemimmune systembecause the spermatozoa with their heritage geneticgenetic different (a copy of the GenoaGenoa instead of two) could be recognized as non-self and be destroyed by theimmunityimmunity. In rare cases such as post-orgasmic illness syndrome, semen can make the person producing it allergic.
The good news is that we can overcome it! There is no specific treatment for semen allergy autologousautologous but solutions exist to get rid of the symptoms. Prescription is done empirically and on a case-by-case basis, no reference treatment exists due to lack ofclinical studyclinical study on this rare disease. For our patient, daily intake of fexofenadine, a antihistamineantihistamine known for a long time, safe and inexpensive, allowed the treatment of 90% of symptoms and the resumption of a normal sexual and love life.
