Baltimore woman allergic to penicillin goes into anaphylactic shock after having unprotected sex with husband
A woman who had unprotected sex with her husband reportedly suffered a life-threatening allergic reaction to penicillin right after.
An hour after the romping session, the 46-year-old, from Baltimore, Maryland, suffered blotchy red patches, began sweating profusely and felt giddy.
Her symptoms worsened and she started suffering diarrhea and extreme itchiness, leading her straight to the emergency ward.
According to the unidentified woman, she had an allergy to penicillin but did not remember having ingested the drug nor any unusual foods before engaging in sexual intercourse.
Doctors at the Sinai Hospital of Baltimore soon noticed her blood pressure had plunged to life-threateningly low levels, and therefore presumed she was suffering from sepsis. They subsequently hooked her up to an IV in order to inject vital fluids that would allow her heart to continue pumping blood at normal levels.
In a bid to fight the sepsis, which the doctors presumed was the result of a severe infection, they gave the patient a course of antibiotics.
However, subsequent tests confirmed she had actually been in anaphylactic shock and that there was no infection in her body. An anaphylactic shock is an extreme reaction by the immune system to supposed harmful substances.
It was then that medics found her husband regularly took nafcillin, which is a form of penicillin, in order to treat a heart infection.
Doctors later confirmed her anaphylaxis was a result of the "seminal transfer of nafcillin."
According to The American Journal of Medicine, the case was only the third of its kind ever recorded in modern medical history.
She was presumably given adrenaline following the diagnosis, which helps relax muscles around the airways in the lungs so they can open up and brings blood pressure back to normal levels.
That said, the woman was able to leave the hospital after her symptoms improved within the next 24 hours.