Posting for my wife, who's Multiple Sclerosis symptoms prevent her from posting herself.
She has been burdened with most of the physical and many of the mental/emotional symptoms of POIS since at least 1997.
After reading Dr W's study and many other POIS symptom descriptors, I was shocked at how well this fit my wife's symptoms to a tee.
We have always just called it "F*ck Dumb" as her most notable symptom has always been a marked decrease in various cognitive function, much as if she had an IQ that was controlled by a little knob in her head that gets turned down several notches immediately after an orgasm, regardless of source, and continues on for about 3-7 days, typically dependent on the number of orgasms she experienced at the onset and if she had any subsequent orgasms during the recovery period; the more orgasms, the longer the recovery time.
While you may want to immediately point to MS as the cause, keep in mind, she was 2nd in her graduating high school class, captain of the college color guard, and maintaining an A/B grade level in college when we first noticed these symptoms in 1997. The symptoms are basically the same since day 1, 25 years ago when I started noticing them, so I don't find that it is likely a symptom of her MS. That and the fact every Neurologist specializing in MS we have seen and talked to about this, just looks at us funny and says "I've never heard of that...maybe she's just dehydrated after sex?". Granted the symptoms have a greater impact on her and me now but that is not because they have seemed to get worse, more so that they have a bigger impact as she has less of a cognitive surplus to give up every time POIS strikes after an orgasm. In other words, when she lost the equivalent of 20 IQ points as fully functioning genius with a normal IQ near 130, it wasn't a big deal to get through the day, however now that she is only working with about 95 IQ points, losing 20 of them can put a really big hiccup in your week.
She does have physical symptoms including fatigue, muscle weakness, muscle control, etc. however, these are markable separate from her MS symptoms in that she always seems to return to the MS symptoms baseline after the 3-7 days is over, with no remaining symptom distress from the POIS, that we can tell.
I have many theories on my wife's issues, but wish to do a LOT more reading on this forum before sharing to ensure I don't violate a posting rule or churn the waters needlessly.
Thank you for all your wisdom, and sharing your experiences. God bless.
