Post orgasmic illness syndrome: what do we know till now?

Abstract

Background Peri orgasmic dysfunctions are very rare and little information exists on their diagnosis and treatment. One of these conditions is post-orgasmic illness syndrome (POIS), manifesting by a debilitating cluster of symptoms affecting men within seconds, minutes, or hours after ejaculation. The aim of this article is to do a thorough literature review about POIS, in order to elucidate the pathophysiology, the diagnosis and the management of this rare disease. Results Updated literature review on Pubmed was done, using the following terms: “orgasm illness”, “post-orgasmic” and “postorgasmic illness syndrome”. The references of the 17 identified publications were also reviewed for additional 8 relevant articles that were all included in the results. POIS has 5 preliminary diagnostic criteria and criterion 1 has 7 described clusters. Pathophysiological hypotheses include: immunological phenomenon (most relevant), opioid-like withdrawal, neuroendocrine response, transient deregulation of the autonomic nervous system, hypersensitivity and disordered cytokines. Differential diagnoses include: chronic prostatitis, orgasmolepsy, benign orgasmic cephalgia, sneezing and rhinorrhea, postcoital dysphoria, post-coital asthma and rhinitis. Patients have been symptomatically treated with antihistamines, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and benzodiazepines. A trial of hyposensitization therapy with autologous semen was successful. Conclusion POIS is a rare condition that is underdiagnosed, most probably because of its unclear pathophysiology leading to a lack of treatment options. Further studies are warranted to investigate the prevalence, pathophysiology, and management of this debilitating condition.

Clinical characteristics, allergic response to autologous semen, and desensitization in patients with postorgasmic illness syndrome

“…So, some patients will be unable to carry out normal work and study and will reject sex, leading to serious mental and psychosocial consequences. 21 Atopic constitution was observed in 47.83% of patients in our study and 58% of patients in the Waldinger et al study. However, Reisman noted that of the 14 patients with POIS, only 4 had an allergy.…”

Post Orgasmic Illness Syndrome (POIS) and Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS): Do They Have Anything in Common?

“…It has long been realized by Proske and Gandevia [22] that damaging eccentric exercises are to blame for the impairment of proprioception. Notable is that impaired involvement in skin proprioception may point towards underlying atopic constitution as was found in a POIS patient [3,6].…”

“…POIS last about 2-7 days after an ejaculation [2,4]. POIS presents a variable clinical picture in the intensity, durations, type of symptoms and their order of appearance [5,6]. Several pathophysiological hypotheses have been proposed to explain the condition, such as immunological phenomenon [5,[7][8][9], opioid-like withdrawal [3], neuroendocrine response [10], transient deregulation of the autonomic nervous system [11], hypersensitivity and disordered cytokines [4,6].…”

“…Furthermore, the acute depletion of spermidine is suggested to be an additional critical mechanism in the pathophysiology of POIS. Another interesting correlation is that many clinicians observed a lifelong premature ejaculation condition among their POIS patients [3,5,6,11] and foresee Piezo2 channels being implicated in the pathomechanism of premature ejaculation [18].…”

Medaus Mėnesio Sloga

“…Be to, lytinis aktas savaime yra hipersensityvinė reakcija [3,4,8]. Kalbant apie alergines reakcijas, išskiriamas platus spektras alergenų, kurie gali sukelti atsaką lytinių santykių metu [1,6,9,10]. Alergenai gali būti perduodami su kūno skysčiais arba veikti tiesiogiai [1,6].…”