Man’s bouts of short-term amnesia brought on by sex, study finds

A man turned up at an Irish hospital emergency department with short-term memory loss brought about by having daytime sex with his wife, according to new research.

The paper documents how the 66-year-old suffered from sudden onset amnesia or Transient Global Amnesia (TGA) within 10 minutes of sex. It was the second time he had suffered from the condition shortly after intercourse.

The study, featured in the May edition of the Irish Medical Journal, involved medics at the University Hospital Limerick department of neurology.

They say the man endured one hour of amnesia before presenting himself at the emergency department and how “after seeing the date on his phone, he became distressed that he had forgotten his wedding anniversary the day before”.

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“He had, in fact, celebrated his wedding anniversary with his wife and family on the previous day. His autobiographical memory remained intact, but he had no memory of that morning or the celebrations the night before.”

The medics state that “the man repetitively questioned his wife and daughter over the events of that morning and the previous day”. The paper states that “no other neurological symptoms were reported and upon arrival to the emergency department his neurological examination was completely normal”.

The medics said the man’s medical history was significant for hypertension, gout and hyper-cholesterolemia and that the case highlights the importance of an early MRI to identify changes in the mescal temporal lobes in the brain.

In their paper, entitled ‘Recurrent Postcoital Transient Amnesia Associated with Diffusion Restriction’, the medics state that TGA is a syndrome of sudden onset amnesia that can last up to 24 hours.

It “can present a diagnostic challenge as its mechanism is poorly understood and it has many potential mimics”. It has been linked to physical exertion, immersion in hot or cold water, emotional stress, pain and sexual intercourse.

They state that TGA usually occurs in people between 50 and 70, often in isolation as a once off event, but studies report an annual recurrence rate of between 6 per cent and 10 per cent.