The woman was treated with an injection of anesthetic into one of her spinal nerves -- the nerve that receives sensory information from the foot -- and the orgasms stopped completely. The woman has not had any foot orgasms for eight months now, although she might need to return for another anesthetic injection if her symptoms return, Waldinger said.
The researchers believe the phenomenon was the result of a sort of mix-up in the brain.
About a year and half before the foot orgasms started, the woman spent three weeks in an intensive care unit -- part of the time, in a coma -- because of a sepsis infection. When she came out of the coma, she had tingling and burning sensations in her left foot, likely as a result of damage to tiny nerve fibers in the foot, Waldinger said.
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.
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