Come again?
Doctors in China say they’re baffled over the case of a young woman who experiences uncontrollable organisms multiple times per day — leaving the terminally-titillated 20-year-old in a perpetual state of arousal.
“The sexual arousal symptoms are characterized by recurrent and spontaneous orgasmic experiences,” wrote Jing Yan and Dafang Ouyang of the Peking University Sixth Hospital in Beijing, in a study of the curious case published in AME Case Reports.
For five years, the unnamed 20-year-old experienced this thunder down under — sans sexual stimulation, leading experts to deduce that she suffered from persistent genital arousal disorder (PGAD), PsyPost reported.
While this affliction might sound like hours of fun, constant pleasure can be quite a pain, causing “significant impairment in psychosocial well-being and daily functioning,” per the study.
This was certainly the case with the patient, who reportedly experienced immense distress and was unable to attend school or work, or maintain relationships.
Unfortunately, getting diagnosed with PGAD was a long time coming.
Her symptoms first reared their head when she was 14, initially manifesting as a “electric” sensation in her abdomen accompanied by pelvic contractions resembling orgasms.
Somewhat confusingly, this was around the same time that the youngster also began displaying increased sensitivity — coupled with bizarre beliefs such as thinking others could read her thoughts, which led to her getting hospitalized a year later and treated for depressive and psychotic symptoms.
Despite multiple remedies, including anti-epileptic and psychiatric medications, the patient’s symptoms persisted, leading her to believe that her constant climaxes were caused by external stimuli.
By the time she finally reported to the hospital, her condition snowballed to the point that she could barely explain her symptoms without getting interrupted by an orgasm.
Neurologists initially ruled out epilepsy through EEG monitoring and other tests, while physical examinations showed no structural abnormalities in her brain or reproductive organs that could’ve triggered her perennial pleasure responses.
Doctors eventually diagnosed the patient with PGAD after a regimen of antipsychotic drugs appeared to mitigate both her big moments and delusions.
After several weeks of treatment, the patient’s condition improved to the point where she could go back to work and have a social life.
But whenever she ceased treatments, her symptoms would come back with a vengeance.
Unfortunately, PGAD still flies under the radar. First formally described in 2001, the malady affects a projected 1% of women in the US, but remains underdiagnosed, per the Cleveland Clinic.
Possible causes include everything from nerves, blood flow, antidepressant medications such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.
Some have even linked the anomalous ailment to an imbalance of dopamine, a neurotransmitter involved in the brain’s arousal and reward system.
Dosing the patient with the aforementioned antipsychotics likely curbed this dopamine response, thereby lessening her symptoms of arousal.
Unfortunately, PGAD has no sure-fire cure as of yet.
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