An unusual, or at least never before documented, medical event has taken place in Mississippi as a 45-year-old woman almost died from an orgasm.

Apparently, she suffered a tear in the wall of her aorta.

This case has been reported in the American Journal of Case Reports, and explains that the woman was treated at the Merit Health Wesley Emergency Department in Hattiesburg.

Marca reports that the patient arrived at the centre with severe chest pain and it was a case that surprised even the experts themselves.

“This is an anecdotal case because the profile of patients with this type of aortic dissection tend to be men in their 60s,” explained Isidre Vila Costa, president of the Valvulopathies and Aortic Pathology section of the Spanish Society of Cardiology (SEC).

The woman explained that she had had sexual intercourse and that during orgasm she had felt a “little strange”.

On arrival at the emergency room, the woman said that before she had symptoms she was having sex with her partner and at orgasm she felt a “pain” in her chest that went all the way down to her back.

Several tests were carried out and it was found that she had suffered an acute aortic syndrome.

“This is a serious pathological process that is life-threatening,” Dr Vila explained.

“You have to go to the emergency room immediately. Most of the time it is diagnosed unrelated to sex.”

This injury is caused by exertion and triggers bleeding from the blood vessels of the aortic wall.

When it happens, emergency departments need to have a high level of expertise to detect and treat it quickly to prevent complications, such as death.

That is why many emergency departments have a cardiology specialist in many units in case such cases occur.

The patient is hypertensive and had been smoking since the age of 17.

They report that the patient arrived at the ED diaphoretic and hypertensive, with intense sweating and a blood pressure of 22/140 mmHg.

When first observed, the woman said that she had hypertension and had been prescribed medication, but she had not taken it for more than a year.

“This is important, because behind most of these types of events is untreated or under-diagnosed hypertension,” Vila stressed.

The president of the Valvulopathy and Aortic Pathology section of the Spanish Society of Cardiology (SEC) also says that the WHO states that half of the population with hypertension is undiagnosed.

“To which we can add that another percentage of those who do have it are poorly controlled or abandon their medication without medical supervision,” he adds.

Capillary vessels burst

The woman also admitted that she had been smoking since the age of 17, although she did so more and more gradually, about six or seven cigarettes a day.

After the first observation, she underwent a computerised angiography of the chest which revealed that she had an intramural haematoma of the distal aortic arch and descending thoracic aorta.

In short, a spontaneous rupture of the capillary vessels had occurred.

Therefore, the woman was given intravenous antihypertensive drugs and they were then administered orally.

To continue the therapeutic approach, the cardiothoracic surgical staff were consulted.

When the oral dose was increased, the antihypertensives were withdrawn and she was finally discharged.