After one woman’s sexual scare, your partner may want to sign a disclaimer next time you think about getting frisky.

A 46-year-old woman from Baltimore, Maryland, suffered an apparent allergic reaction post-coitus with her husband. Turns out he had recently been prescribed an antibiotic for a heart infection, which sent his wife — who has an allergy to penicillin — into anaphylactic shock.

Within an hour after intercourse, the woman reported profuse sweating, inflammation and dizziness. Her symptoms worsened, later suffering intense itchiness, diarrhea and dangerously low blood pressure, and was rushed to Sinai Hospital where they initially treated her for sepsis, an infection of the bloodstream.

But further tests revealed that it wasn’t an infection causing her symptoms, but anaphylactic shock caused by her immune system overreacting to an allergen. The condition causes the patient’s blood pressure to plummet and narrows air passages, making breathing almost impossible.

Then doctors learned about the husbands medication, and decided that the woman’s reaction was caused by “seminal transfer of nafcillin,” her husband’s penicillin drug, they wrote in their report, published in The American Journal of Medicine.

After receiving proper treatment for her anaphylaxis, her symptoms improved and she was able to leave the hospital within 24 hours. They sent her home with an EpiPen prescription, and advised her to steer clear of sex with her husband for at least a week after he completed his course of antibiotics.

This is the third known case study of its kind, doctors said, including an incident last March involving a 31-year-old woman from Alicante, Spain, whose allergy to amoxicillin kicked-in after performing oral sex on her partner. Authors of the most recent report note that some antibiotics are known to concentrate in semen. They are warning other doctors and pharmacists to be mindful of how drug allergies impact sex.

“Though anaphylactic reactions secondary to seminal transfer of allergens are exceedingly rare,” they wrote in the case study, “the prescribing provider must take into account the hazards of allergic reactions and adverse side effects, not only for the patient but also for the patient’s family.”

Source: Read Full Article