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ShareLondon: Many people describe sex as a mind-blowing experience, but for one woman it turned to be mind-erasing.
An American woman, 59, known only as Alice, suffered a sudden attack of amnesia after enjoying a steamy romp with her husband.
Called "transient global amnesia" or TGA, the sudden loss of memory is caused by pressure in blood vessels in the brain, and can be triggered by strenuous activities, bowel movements, or--more commonly-- by sex.
Alice had the worrying experience last August after she and her husband Scott made love. She suddenly lost all memory of the last several years and the ability to form new memories.
Post the steamy session, the couple turned on the television, which was showing the Beijing Olympics, and she asked, "Is there an Olympics?"
Scott told CNN, "I saw that something was wrong, so I asked her, 'Okay, what day is it?'"
When she couldn't answer, he asked her to name the current president, to which she replied, "Bill Clinton."
Seeing her condition, the husband called an ambulance and she was taken to hospital, where it was initially thought she may have had a stroke.
However, neurologists were soon able to diagnose TGA, a relatively common experience in the over-50s.
Dr Louis Caplan, professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, said: "[Sex] is actually a well-known precipitator. One of the things people have done to look at transient global amnesia is to look at frequency of various precipitants, and sex always comes out as one of the most common."
