TUESDAY, September 16, (News Locale) - Vulnerable individuals may suffer a "cryptogenic" stroke after having sexual intercourse as evidenced by the case of an otherwise healthy woman from Illinois. The 35-year-old woman began experiencing numbness on her left side minutes after intercourse.

The case report detailing her near fatal stroke appears in the latest issue of the Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Disease. Dr. Jose Biller, chairman of the department of neurology at the Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago, treated the woman who also experienced slurred speech and loss of sensation on the left side of her face.

The woman was saved by the timely administration of the clot-busting drug tPA. However it was a touch and go situation, Dr Barber said. The women, whose identity is concealed for legal reasons, arrived at the hospital six hours after she had the stroke.

Usually tPA is given within three hours. Doctors decided to administer the drug directly in the clot region to save her life. Within hours, all symptoms had disappeared, the researchers report.

The only sign of stroke today in the patients is the loss of dexterity in her left hand. She is otherwise healthy.

The case is unusual because sex per se is not associated with stroke. Instances of people losing conscious after intercourse are reported anecdotal medical literature, but stroke is not so common. Birth control pills, a defect in the heart and presence of blood clots are the reasons for stroke after sex.

In the present case, the woman was found to have a rare condition called patent foramen ovale (PFO), which allows blood to pass from the right side of the heart to the left side. This blood bypasses the lungs and goes directly to the brain. The woman had surgery to repair this defect and was fully recovered in four days.

The problem with PFO is that it does not present any signs or symptoms at all. Around 40 percent of people who suffer cryptogenic strokes have PFO. The defect is repaired by surgery and most individuals can lead normal lives afterward.