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Unrelenting Arousal -- Rare Sexual Disorder Plagues Women
ABC News ^ | May 11, 2006 | None given

Posted on 05/12/2006 8:26:06 AM PDT by Steve0113

Women Struggle to Cope With Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome

May 11, 2006 — - In one of the more provocative episodes of "Grey's Anatomy," the hospital staff was stumped when a young woman came in having what first appeared to be seizures ... but turned out to be orgasms.

They smirked and giggled. There was even a touch of envy as the interns gaped at their patient. As bizarre as it seems, though, the story line is based loosely on a real though rare disorder called persistent sexual arousal syndrome, or PSAS. A 2001 study published in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy was the first to identify it, citing "persistent feelings of sexual arousal in the absence of sexual desire" that are "intrusive and unwanted." Since that study, however, word has been very slow to get around.

Nancy Brown said her life was devastated about six years ago by the onset of unrelenting, unwanted, sexual arousal.

"It was so intense I couldn't concentrate on anything else -- only the desire to have sex with someone who isn't there," she said.

Nothing relieved the symptoms. Nancy says she turned over all the household chores to her husband, Glen Brown, and fell into a deep depression.

"I was embarrassed, I felt shame. And there's no help. There's nothing," she added.

Sleepless for nights on end, she said, her symptoms even brought her to the brink of suicide. "I told him that he didn't deserve this, my kids didn't deserve it, they didn't deserve to live this way and I couldn't go on with it anymore," she said.

Heather Dearmon understands Brown's desperation. She had just gotten married and was pregnant with her son when symptoms of PSAS began for her.

"I woke up one morning, and I just felt these strange sensations," she said.

Though she had no sexual desire, she had to bring on an orgasm to get any relief from the constant pressure. But relief didn't last.

"As time went on, the sensations grew stronger, and it would take me longer and longer to be able to achieve orgasm," she explained.

But the relief was only temporary.

"It got to the point where I was having it in the morning. I would make it go away for an hour or so. It would come back. I would have to masturbate again. And I would actually be crying while I was masturbating. There was no pleasure in it at all," she said.

Dearmon's life was turned upside down. She no longer went out. She couldn't take care of the house or her son. Frantic, she looked to her gynecologist, who sent her to a psychotherapist.

What followed, Dearmon said, was a series of visits to doctors and therapists, with no results. She became suicidal and had two stays in psychiatric hospitals, which, she said, only made her feel worse.

"The psychiatrist there suggested that I was sexually suppressed and maybe I should try lesbianism. And then the nurse there got very upset with me. And she said, 'Oh, well, I wish I could stay home and masturbate every day like you.' So, it was just a very hurtful experience," Dearmon said.

Like Dearmon, Jeannie Allen began experiencing nearly constant unwanted sexual arousal long before doctors knew what it was.

"My own gynecologist, who was a male, smiled and told me I was every man's dream. And I was mortified. I wasn't thinking about sex. I didn't have any fantasies; I wasn't involved physically with my husband. I wasn't watching anything, reading anything. But it was there," she said.

Dr. Susan Kellogg, director of sexual medicine at the Public and Sexual Health Institute of Philadelphia, has diagnosed five patients with PSAS in the past five years -- all of whom report terrible physical and emotional distress. "It doesn't have to do with sex for them. They don't have any sexual desire, thoughts, fantasies, nothing," she said.

"Women have told me that they felt that it inferred that they were hypersexual or that they were, in some way, less than honorable and, in fact, it couldn't be further from the truth. These are lovely women, usually in stable, monogamous relationships, and they are not hypersexual at all," Kellogg said.

Jeannie Allen believed she had to keep her condition secret -- even from her husband.

"It's just an embarrassing thing. When you don't know what's wrong, how are you going to explain it to your partner? I knew he would probably feel he wasn't enough for me, [that] he didn't satisfy me. So I didn't tell him. I took a soulmate that we had everything in common with, that we did everything together with, and just told him I wasn't happy anymore. That I wanted a divorce," she said weeping.

Lisa Martinez, a nurse and an attorney, created the Women's Sexual Health Foundation to educate women and doctors, most of whom don't know the syndrome exists.

"Typically, they're totally unaware of it, whether it's PSAS, or some of the other [gynecological] conditions," she said.

And Martinez said ob-gyn professionals aren't receiving adequate training to identify or treat the syndrome.

For now, the cause of persistent sexual arousal syndrome remains largely a mystery, except to say it differs from woman to woman. Treatment has been just as elusive.

"There is no percentage of wellness for instance, like 50 percent get better on a given medication. We don't have enough patients with this syndrome yet to have done research. … We don't have any funding to do the research right now. And so every woman is treated as an individual case," Kellogg said.

Since PSAS was identified in 2001, about 400 women have been diagnosed with the condition. But Allen says just finding out she wasn't alone was an enormous relief.

"I just burst into tears, because it validated that I knew that there was something wrong, and it wasn't in my head," she said.

Allen then started a support group on the Internet so PSAS patients could share stories and what little information about treatments could be found. Dearmon's husband read about the Web site in the newspaper.

It was a much-needed source of support for Dearmon.

"It was a good day. I mean, I was crying as I was reading their testimonies. You know, some of them had the exact same story as me," she said.

As for treatment, Dearmon says she found moderate relief with the popular antidepressant Paxil. She is no longer a slave to her condition.

"If the sensations were from one to 10, and 10 being the highest, it kind of stops it at 7, so it's not where I'm completely losing my mind," she said.

Brown has tried about anything anyone has suggested, including some drastic measures.

"Approximately 18 months ago I underwent nerve decompression surgery. I even went through electro-convulsive therapy," she said.

She ended up getting 42 electric shock treatments, and suffered severe memory loss as a side effect, but her symptoms have diminished only a little. "It's livable; I can do things and not constantly feel it. But it's there 24 hours a day; it never goes away for me.

Allen said her best hope is to bring attention to PSAS in the medical community, so that research to find the cause and cure for her misery can begin. In the meantime, she has a message for doctors who may still be in the dark.

"We want our doctors to know we're not crazy, it's not in our heads, that it does exist and to pay attention. Don't dismiss us just because it wasn't in your textbook. Maybe you ought to put this one in yours. That's what I would tell them."

Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: restlesslegssyndrome; sexualdysfunction
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To: Fintan

You WISH


:D


101 posted on 05/12/2006 9:32:53 AM PDT by Shimmer128
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To: Steve0113
"It was so intense I couldn't concentrate on anything else -- only the desire to have sex with someone who isn't there,"...

This happens to a lot of men after they get married.
102 posted on 05/12/2006 9:34:14 AM PDT by AD from SpringBay (We have the government we allow and deserve.)
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To: Mordacious
"Guess it's the female version of priapism."

My sleep doctor perscribed some pills that it said could cause that, but they ran out before I could discover how many it took.

103 posted on 05/12/2006 9:34:32 AM PDT by Slump Tester ( What if I'm pregnant Teddy? Errr-ahh Calm down Mary Jo, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it)
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To: Vaquero
Plunk yer magic twanger froggy!

Do you know how few of us there are that remember that show?

104 posted on 05/12/2006 9:36:05 AM PDT by ASA Vet (Those who know don't talk. Those who talk don't know.)
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To: Vaquero
Plunk yer magic twanger froggy!

???

105 posted on 05/12/2006 9:36:19 AM PDT by Steve0113 (Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. -A.L.)
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To: Shimmer128

I think he means that his presence kills any cravings in the woman.


106 posted on 05/12/2006 9:38:14 AM PDT by Steve0113 (Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. -A.L.)
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To: Steve0113

google up froggy the gremlin...

or Andy's gang.

its just that the quote seemed to go with this thread.

ahhhemm.


107 posted on 05/12/2006 9:44:45 AM PDT by Vaquero ("An armed society is a polite society" Robert A. Heinlein)
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To: Steve0113

Okay, got it.


108 posted on 05/12/2006 9:47:05 AM PDT by Steve0113 (Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. -A.L.)
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To: kingattax

limp johnson :-)


109 posted on 05/12/2006 9:56:39 AM PDT by mcshot (Enemies through our nonexistent gates.)
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To: mcshot

sorry man.....i forget sometimes how powerful that photo of helen is. (the face that sunk a thousand ships).


110 posted on 05/12/2006 10:00:22 AM PDT by kingattax
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To: DaveLoneRanger
Expect a high read count, and many borderline comments on this thread.

Borderline comment alert!

I'll bet it was easy to track her.....just like this slug...


111 posted on 05/12/2006 10:00:57 AM PDT by edpc
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To: Xenalyte

Yeah, when I saw the headline I immediately thought of Rush, hence the quick quip.


112 posted on 05/12/2006 10:00:58 AM PDT by Diddle E. Squat
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To: Steve0113

Ok, I'm stupid this week! I'm misunderstanding posts left and right.
sigh

I thought he meant that he was so wonderful, that he fulfilled them and they got over it.
duh.


113 posted on 05/12/2006 11:12:10 AM PDT by Shimmer128 (I've seen the village, I don't want it raising my children)
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To: Constitution Day

I thought I was one of the only people who knew that Buzzcocks song.


114 posted on 05/12/2006 12:24:33 PM PDT by Tokra (I think I'll retire to Bedlam.)
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To: Tokra

I'd say the percentage of Freepers who knew it is pretty small, LOL.

I have the CD somewhere...


115 posted on 05/12/2006 12:26:35 PM PDT by Constitution Day
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To: DainBramage

I don't care who you are, that's funny right there.


116 posted on 05/12/2006 1:01:09 PM PDT by gogeo (The /sarc tag is a form of training wheels for those unable to discern intellectual subtlety.)
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To: knews_hound
I worked with a woman who, when you squeezed her shoulder, would instantly orgasm.

Probably followed by an overwhelming urge to smoke a cigarette.

117 posted on 05/12/2006 1:05:01 PM PDT by Semper Paratus
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To: stylecouncilor

ping


118 posted on 05/12/2006 1:07:39 PM PDT by windcliff
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To: Steve0113
Its different from nymphomania, in the sense its a curse. You get sexually aroused when you don't want to be sexually aroused. And for a woman, its not funny when the you're seized with a desire for sex to the point its taking over your life.

(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")

119 posted on 05/12/2006 1:10:43 PM PDT by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives On In My Heart Forever)
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To: Thrusher

Grey's Anatomy featured this disorder
http://www.tv.com/greys-anatomy/yesterday/episode/584423/summary.html


120 posted on 05/12/2006 1:12:00 PM PDT by sono ("If Congressional brains were cargo, there'd be nothing to unload." - Rush Limbaugh)
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