January 20, 2011 | Health Matters

You may be allergic to your own sperm

Imagine being allergic to your own sperm.

Believe it or not, there are men who cannot ejaculate without becoming ill. It's called POIS, or post-orgasmic illness syndrome. Researchers have been looking into this rare ailment since 2002, trying to determine why some men develop a flu-like illness with symptoms ranging from fever, runny nose, fatigue and burning eyes after cumming. The symptoms can last up to a week.

Marcel Waldinger, a professor of sexual psychopharmacology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, does not support the notion that the occurrence is psychosomatic, as many doctors think. He has published his research in the 'Journal of Sexual Medicine.' 

When Waldinger and his colleagues studied 33 men with POIS, using the standard skin-prick allergy test with a diluted form of each man's own semen, 88% showed a positive allergic reaction, indicating an autoimmune response.

"They didn't feel ill when they masturbated without ejaculating," Waldinger told Reuters. "But as soon as the semen came from the testes ... after that, they became ill, sometimes within just a few minutes."

During a smaller, second study, Waldinger found that the use of hyposensitization therapy had positive results. Two of the men were injected with a very dilute solution of their own semen, then over a period of months with more concentrated forms. After a couple years, their symptoms from POIS were greatly reduced.

Thank goodness we don't have this problem or we'd be on permanent disability.

Some poor men are apparently allergic to their own semen [LA Times]