Wii Fit accident and female persistent genital arousal syndrome

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Last Fall, Manchester (UK) resident Amanda Flowers claimed to have sustained a fall from her Wii Fit balance board, with unspecified injuries leading to her diagnoses of persistent arousal syndrome. Of course there’s been much snickering and giggling in the press for a variety of reasons (and the Wii balance board has been put on the top shelf in my house since the news broke), but it’s bringing some interesting discussion about the syndrome to light. The short moral of the story: if you fall during Super Hula Hoop, plz be careful not to land on your punany. Snip from When Being Turned On is a Turn Off:

(…) Persistent genital arousal disorder can develop from a physical injury, said Goldstein, director of sexual medicine at Alvarado Hospital in San Diego, California, who also oversees the peer review process for the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

If the nerve called the pudendal nerve, which goes to a woman’s clitoris, is irritated, she will feel pulsing and throbbing all the time, and feels relief only with orgasm. But after orgasm, the arousal could return minutes or even seconds later, and the cycle can repeat all day.
“For people who have this, it’s an unbelievable, horrible situation,” Goldstein said. “It’s not as rare as we once thought and really causes distress to people.” Goldstein, who has hundreds of patients with this disorder, estimated it affects thousands of women. There is an equivalent condition in men, but it is far more rare, he said.

The condition, while documented in case reports, is poorly understood, said Lori Brotto, assistant professor of gynecology at the University of British Columbia. There has been little systematic research into what really causes the problem. Because of this lack of study, the condition is not being considered for the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, said Brotto, who is on a committee to revise this guidebook for mental health professionals.

A woman could get persistent genital arousal disorder through physical damage, as reported in the British case, but more commonly women experience it after abruptly stopping antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), Goldstein said. Rhodes had been taking SSRIs, and stopped them before her symptoms of unwanted arousal began. These drugs change the balance of chemicals in women’s brains, Goldstein said. SSRIs have been shown in some people to cause diminished libido.

Women with the condition experience constant distraction and embarrassment, Goldstein said. Doctors who have it will have an orgasm in the middle of speaking with patients; teachers with it fear accusations of sexual deviancy from parents of their students, he said. (…read more, cnn.com)