Bizarre Patient: A Man Loses His Memory After Having Sex With His Wife

Today in weird patient, an Irishman forgets everything that happened after having sex with his wife. How is this possible?

66-year-old Irishman presents to hospital in Limerick, a small town in the west of the island. For an hour, the man has been worrying his family. He explains to the doctor that when he saw the time and date on his phone, he forgot to celebrate his wedding anniversary, which was to take place the day before his visit to the hospital – but the festivities did take place, as confirmed by the patient’s wife and daughter. The rest of his memory is intact, but he has no memory of the previous day.

post-coitus amnesia

His health report reveals nothing abnormal:hypertensiona hypercholesterolemia and joint inflammation; common problems in men his age. He says he had already experienced an amnesic episode seven years earlier. L’MRI does not show any anomaly because it was carried out too late, more than 72 hours after theamnesia. The examination carried out in time, the doctors might have seen in his brain a small area of diffusion in the lobe temporal left mesial on cerebral images, this is characteristic of transient global amnesia. Questioning the patient is sufficient to confirm the diagnostiche did have transient amnesia.

Transient global amnesia is a sudden and temporary loss of Memory concerning events that took place before, during and sometimes after the amnesia trigger. It lasts on average between one and eight hours, but, in the most extreme cases, it can last up to 24 hours. Transient global amnesia usually occurs in men between the ages of 50 and 70 and can be the result of a whole host of factors: stressan effort physical intense, sudden immersion in cold water or sexual intercourse.

That’s what happened to this Irish patient. Indeed, he tells the doctors that his amnesia appeared about ten minutes after having had sex with his wife. His first amnesia, seven years earlier, had taken place under the same conditions. Having sex can literally make you lose your memory!