A 55-year-old woman in the Netherlands visited the doctor with an
unusual complaint: She experienced unwanted orgasms that started in
her foot, according to a new report of her case.
The orgasmic sensations — which occurred in her left foot — were
sudden, not brought on by sexual desire or thoughts, and occurred
about five to six times a day, the report said. The sensation traveled
up her left leg to her vagina, and she said the experience felt
exactly like an orgasm achieved during sex.
These orgasms were very embarrassing and worrying to the woman, said
study author Dr. Marcel D. Waldinger, who treated the woman and is a
neuropsychiatrist and professor in sexual psychopharmacology at
Utrecht University in the Netherlands.
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University Medical Center Utrecht |
"She felt terrible about it," Waldinger said.
Magnetic resonance images (MRI scans) of the woman's brain and her
foot showed no abnormalities, although another test revealed some
differences between the nerves of her left and right feet, Waldinger
told LiveScience. Stimulating her left foot with an electric current
induced a spontaneous orgasm in that foot, he said.
The woman was treated with an injection of anesthetic into one of her
spinal nerves — the nerve that receives sensory information from the
foot — and the orgasms stopped completely. The woman has not had any
foot orgasms for eight months now, although she might need to return
for another anesthetic injection if her symptoms return, Waldinger
said.
The researchers believe the phenomenon was the result of a sort of
mix-up in the brain.
About a year and half before the foot orgasms started, the woman spent
three weeks in an intensive care unit — part of the time, in a coma —
because of a sepsis infection. When she came out of the coma, she had
tingling and burning sensations in her left foot, likely as a result
of damage to tiny nerve fibers in the foot, Waldingersaid.
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Interestingly, the nerve that registers sensory information from the
foot enters the spinal cord at the same level as the nerve that
registers sensory information from the vagina, Waldingersaid. Because
of nerve damage in her foot, the woman's brain did not receive sensory
information from her foot, but it did receive sensory information from
the vagina.
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| Orgasm Inducer |
happened, the researchers believe "the brain could not anymore
differentiate between the foot and the vagina. So that it decided that
every stimulus coming from the foot was actually coming from the
vagina," Waldinger said. "And that means an orgasmic feeling," in the
foot, he said.
The researchers called the woman's disorder "foot orgasm syndrome,"
and it is the only known case of its kind. (A foot orgasm has
previously been reported in a man with a foot amputation).
Waldinger thinks there may be other people who have the condition, but
are too embarrassed to talk about it. Waldinger wanted to publish the
case report in part to reduce the stigma surrounding such conditions.
"It's not psychological," Waldinger said. "It’s a neurological thing —
we can explain it, we can treat it."
Waldinger is hoping to hear from more people who may have a similar
condition, and has made a website for people to contact him
The study was published online June 19/2013 in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
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