2023-06-06 10:00:00
“I was terrified to say anything to my parents. Fortunately, the blisters eventually disappeared on their own. But when I became really sexually active shortly afterwards, the trouble really started. Every time I had sex, my vagina was red and I was extremely itchy, feeling like I was on fire down there. My arms and legs also swelled up. They were all tight, like I was retaining too much fluid, and they hurt like hell.”
“I was on the pill and my boyfriend had tested for STIs before losing my virginity, so this time I was absolutely sure it couldn’t be a venereal disease. I only made the connection with sperm when my tongue swelled up so much that I almost choked after I had given him oral pleasure.
I was totally freaked out, luckily he had the presence of mind to take me to the emergency room immediately. There I was given a medicine for allergic reactions, and that helped immediately. After being tested for vaginosis, a bacterial infection, a bladder infection and a yeast infection just to be sure, all tests came back negative. I myself had no idea what it could be exactly, but luckily my GP did.”
“Because I had a history of food allergies, he made the link before I did. Of course I also knew that I am allergic to eggs and certain grains and vegetables. I therefore neatly avoided that and it went well for years. The moment my doctor suggested that I might also have an allergy to semen, I was blinking my eyes.
I know it sounds weird and it doesn’t happen very often, but it really exists. Those who are extremely allergic can even experience anaphylactic shock and death after contact with semen. Just like someone who is extremely allergic to peanuts, for example. But it is also possible that the allergic reaction is triggered by something in the semen, for example a protein that comes from the prostate and not the sperm,’ he explained.
In my case, it could even be due to something my boyfriend had eaten if certain proteins from a product to which I have an allergy had ended up in his semen. A semen allergy, or allergy to semen plasma, is uncommon, but it is indeed an allergy that is recognized by specialists all over the world. It also occurs in men. The symptoms matched exactly what happened every time I came into contact with semen. And I’m prone to allergies.”
“According to my doctor, there were all kinds of solutions. For example, I could remedy my complaints by always using a condom. Or through a kind of habituation called hyposensitization. They also do this for men with this problem. During the treatment, they inject diluted semen at intervals under the skin, so that your body can slowly ‘get used’ to it and, over time, will regard it as a body’s own substance. As a result, the allergic reaction will disappear, or at least be greatly reduced.
The only problem for me was that I’m allergic to all semen, not one particular man’s. My friend and I had already experimented with his diet to see if it would have an effect, but nothing improved. And I also had the vivid memory of that first handjob in my mind. That was with another boy and I also got those terrible blisters with him.”
“I was willing to defy the pain and the allergic reaction if I knew for sure that I would spend the rest of my life with one man. Only I was so young and the tolerance only works with one person. I could have built it up with my boyfriend at the time But if we broke up, I’d have to go through it again with the next one, and the one after that, and the one after that, because although I was in love, I had no illusions that I’d have sex with just one man since I was seventeen. to have.
And I was right, because because my libido took a huge hit, the romance quickly fizzled out. I didn’t think it was worth the trouble either. The courtship fizzled out. At that moment I honestly thought it was nice not to have a polonaise on my body for a while. But when I fell in love again a year later, I had another problem.”
“By now I was a bit more sober about it. I knew there was a solution that would allow me to have sex until I was sure I wanted to be with a man for a long time. And that solution was very simple: the condom! But yes, telling my new boyfriend that I was allergic to semen was quite another thing. The friends I had confided in had all burst into laughter at first. And I couldn’t even blame them. Of course it also sounds pretty bizarre!
Fortunately, they were genuinely interested and understanding when they noticed I wasn’t kidding. Just to have to tell something like that to the guy you want him to see as “perfect” is something completely different. And so at first I just didn’t say anything except that I wanted him to use a condom. Not weird at all in a new relationship. And I thought I could get around the problem so our first night together wouldn’t be ruined by a bizarre medical story. I knew, of course, that there would come a time when I had to tell. Imagine if I went into anaphylactic shock because the condom broke?”
“I hoped to be able to enjoy the romantic fairy tale for a while. Well, that went horribly wrong. A few weeks earlier I had accidentally eaten something with egg in it, to which I had a pretty strong reaction. And apparently that reaction had triggered something, because my food allergies suddenly skyrocketed. Nuts, wheat, tomatoes and potatoes, bananas, avocados and mango… I reacted like crazy to it. I just had no idea that all these products involved the same substance that I was allergic to: latex. Exactly, the material condoms are made of…”
“I don’t think I need to tell you that the intended romantic first time did not go entirely according to the scenario I devised. I won’t go into details, but the keywords ‘condom, two minutes of divine sex, crying, shortness of breath and a body like a stuffed zeppelin’ I think describe the situation.
Well, and then you have to tell it a little earlier than you had hoped. That was a great test case, by the way, because I immediately knew I had a good one. I don’t think every twenty-year-old boy had reacted so relaxed and understandingly, but Michael did. We are now, more than ten years and many trouble-free sex later, still together. No, not by leaving the church before singing, because even with precum things go wrong. Fortunately, there is a well-known condom brand that manufactures latex-free copies of polyisoprene.”
“We have a normal relationship and a normal, if somewhat tentative, sex life. So that part goes fairly smoothly. But now we have also faced a new hurdle, because how can you get pregnant if your body rejects your partner’s sperm as if it were an unwanted intruder?
I know it is possible to get pregnant. But if I don’t want to expose myself to the whole process of slowly getting used to Michael’s sperm, then I have to resort to UI (intrauterine insemination, ed.) or IVF with sperm that have been ‘washed’ in a certain way to remove all the seminal fluid and the proteins that are causing my allergic reaction.
Still, I think that’s the path we’re going to take. My allergies have only become more severe in recent years, instead of milder. I really don’t dare to risk an anaphylactic shock. I’m not a hypochondriac and I think I’ll survive, but I just don’t want to take the chance. Not only because I don’t want to die for a long time, but also because I don’t want to make it happen to Michael that he – worst case scenario – becomes the man who killed his girlfriend with his sperm.”
#Marly #allergic #semen #choked