(CBS NEWS) – A 55-year-old woman from the Netherlands turned to doctors to help her with unwanted, and daily multiple orgasms that started in her foot. According to the report, the woman experienced orgasmic sensations in her left foot which then traveled up her left leg to her vagina culminating in experiences akin to that of orgasms achieved during sex.
According to Dr. Marcel D. Waldinger, the author of the report, the woman was very embarrassed and concerned by the 5 to 6 orgasmic sensations she experienced daily, that were not even triggered by thoughts or sexual desires.
MRI scans of the woman’s brain and feet proved to be normal, but another test administered revealed differences in the nerves between her two feet. In fact, Waldinger told LiveScience that the woman achieved a spontaneous orgasm when her left foot was stimulated with an electric current.
The woman was treated with an anesthetic injection into one of her spinal nerves, specifically the nerve that receives sensory information from her foot. She has not had an orgasm in 8 months. At least not one that emanated from her foot.
Researchers believe that this condition was the result of a mix-up in the brain, possibly related to an incident that occurred a year and half earlier when the woman spent three weeks in intensive care, and part of that time in a coma, with a sepsis infection. When she came out of a coma, Waldinger said that she experienced tingling and burning sensations in her left foot, most likely the result of damaged nerves.
Interestingly, the nerve that registers sensory information from the foot enters the spinal cord at the same level as the nerve that registers sensory information from the vagina, Waldinger said. Because of nerve damage in her foot, the woman’s brain did not receive sensory information from her foot, but it did receive sensory information from the vagina.
After a year and a half, the nerve in the foot regenerated. When that happened, the researchers believe “the brain could not anymore differentiate between the foot and the vagina. So that it decided that every stimulus coming from the foot was actually coming from the vagina,” Waldinger said. “And that means an orgasmic feeling,” in the foot, he said.
Researchers have given the woman’s condition the name “foot orgasm syndrome.” While no other reports of FOS have been reported by women, a foot orgasm was previously reported by a man with a foot amputation.
Waldinger believes that there are many other cases out there but people are too embarrassed to come forward. He has set up a web site to let folks know that there is a safe place for those with FOS.
Why anybody would want to cure this condition is a total mystery.
Photo: Scarleth White / Flickr
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