the electric shock can be extremely painful

A study recently presented to the American Heart Associations Scientific Sessions 2011 shows that both men and women suffer from a considerable fear of electric shocks from implanted cardioverter defibrillators when they are having sex. So much so that many of them say that it has a big impact on their sexual performance.

The way that an ICD works is by detecting any irregular heartbeats and delivering an electric shock to get the heartbeat rhythm back to normal. This all sounds very routine but the electric shock can be extremely painful and definitely not conducive to good sex.

For the study done with 151 volunteers, 41 of them had an ICD implanted and questions were asked about sexual satisfaction, sexual function and depression.  The men were asked about their erectile function and the women were questioned about female sexual dysfunction such as orgasms, arousal levels and pain during sex.  For those volunteers who had an ICD implanted they were asked about the degree of anxiety and concern about getting an ICD shock.

The results of the survey showed that both men and women who had a high level of anxiety about getting an electric shock tended to have significantly lower sexual function scores. The researchers who called this fear shock-related anxiety said that other factors such as erectile function, female sexual function and depression tended to be the same in both those volunteers who had ICDs and those who did not.

The head researcher of this study, Professor Stephen C. Cook explained that the results suggested that doctors should talk to their patients about any anxiety they might have when having sex with ICDs and possibly refer them for counseling. Professor Cook who works at the Adult Congenital Heart Disease Center at the Childrens Hospital of Pittsburgh stressed that it was important that both patients and health care providers communicated well when it came to the implants of ICDs so as to reduce shock-related anxiety.

Men who have ICDs should always inform doctors before getting a prescription for the erectile dysfunction drugs Viagra, Cialis or Levitra and women should also inform their doctors about ICDs should they require the female sexual dysfunction drug Intrinsa.