A paper in the Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Disease presents the unusual case of a woman who suffered a stroke minutes after having intercourse with her boyfriend.

The woman began complaining of numbness on the left side of her face, her speech became slurred and her left arm became weak only minutes after intercourse. When reaching the hospital, she “was in a real state of panic,” Dr. Jose Biller, chairman of the department of neurology at the Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago, who dealt with her case, recalled.

The case drew the attention of doctors at Loyola University Medical Center, as the woman was only 35-year-old, had no history of heart disease, and didn’t use to smoke. The only thing that could have triggered a stroke in her case were the birth control pills she was taking. Birth control pills sometimes results in blot clots that could trigger strokes. The case was the more startling, as sexual intercourse, in of itself, is not likely to trigger a stroke without accompanying risk factors.

And still, the case is not singular. Men appear to have a higher risk of stroke after intercourse than women do and it is usually a condition that affects those in their later years.

More than 700,000 Americans suffer a stroke each year and about 160,000 of them die, according to the national Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Strokes often results in disability.

Searching for answers at the question: “What exactly could have triggered the stroke?,” doctors began analyzing the woman’s heart and discovered she had a hole in her heart that had not been previously detected. The condition is known as patent foramen ovale (PFO) and according to a study published in the journal Archives of Neurology in 2004, one out of every four people has the condition without knowing it. Also, 40 percent of people suffering strokes without an apparent reason have a PFO.

The condition predisposes those having it to strokes during sexual intercourse or during other activities that could introduce pressure changes in the heart.

Dr. Biller also discovered the woman had a blood clot in one of the main veins in her right leg.

"Most likely what happened was that the clot that was in the venous system traveled to the heart, and because she had that hole, due to the pressure changes that occurred during intercourse, most likely the clot migrated from the right to the left chambers of her heart, and then from the left chamber of the heart and into the brain," Dr. Biller said.

He scheduled the woman for a surgery to repair the hole in her heart, prescribed her aspirin and a blood thinner and in four days, the women recovered almost completely. When leaving the hospital, the only signs that she had suffered a stroke were a slight weakening of her facial muscle and impairment of her left hand.