Why does he cough after sex?

When my husband ejaculates, he coughs a lot. He says he sometimes avoids ejaculating so that he does not cough. Why?

Anita

Dear Anita,
Most times, men are reluctant to visit a doctor until a condition gets worse and difficult to cure. Your husband could be taking coughing after sex to be harmless, especially with the knowledge of having been a smoker since coughing in smokers current or past is very common.
Some men with cough after sex may actually be reacting to their own semen after they ejaculate. This so-called post orgasmic illness syndrome (POIS) though not common may happen to a few men resulting in, among other symptoms, severe muscular body pain, fatigue and flu-like or allergy-like symptoms including cough.
The symptoms usually begin immediately after ejaculation and can last up to a week resulting in a man avoiding sex or any kind of ejaculation including from masturbation. The affected man may learn to fake ejaculation because he has to fulfil his conjugal obligations, aware that his cough symptoms happen when he ejaculates.
Also, ejaculation is controlled by the interaction between the sympathetic nervous system (fear fight and flight) and the parasympathetic (“rest, feed and breed nervous system) through the vagus nerve, which is the primary nerve controlling many of the parasympathetic functions, and coughing can lead to coughing related to ejaculation.
Sex is a physical exercise that can lead to exercise induced asthma (Exercise-Induced Bronchoconstriction) that may also lead to coughing after sex. Also, a person with a heart condition can cough due to exertion during sex but not necessarily after ejaculation.
Since there are multiple causes of this problem, your husband needs to visit his doctor for a check up to rule out heart problems, asthma or allergy to his own semen.

Spraying of breast milk
Dr my wife and I have been married for 15 years and have five children with the youngest being only three months old. However, nowadays even just touching her causes her to spray me with breast milk. Why?

Seith

Dear Seith,
Mothers are usually advised to start getting intimate six weeks after delivery. This is the time when their tissues have healed properly and a PAP smear for cancer of the cervix has been completed. However, some women become sexually active before this time elapses and are found pregnant during the post-natal checkup.
At three months, a mother may have started working hence not having enough time to breastfeed. This leads to breasts being too full with a likelihood of spraying milk on anybody touching the breasts and eliciting the milk ejection reflex.
In the first weeks of breastfeeding, the reflex responds to a baby sucking the breasts but after sometime, even thoughts including thinking about the baby or hearing them cry may trigger ejection. With you touching the full breasts, milk is likely to be squirted.
Another likely reason could be that your wife gets aroused when you touch her hence the squirting of milk.
One of the key hormones released during sex is oxytocin, the love and cuddle hormone which is also responsible for milk ejection from the breasts in what is called the milk let down reflex. Oxytocin causes a squeeze of cells around where milk is produced hence ejecting milk out through the nipple.
Your wife might be too shy to demand fulfilment of the marital obligations leaving it to the milk squirting breasts to complain aloud. Please immediately start fulfilling your marital obligations otherwise you will keep embarrassingly carrying the smell of milk to your office.

Why do I have pimples at 55?

I have recently relocated to Pallisa District in eastern Uganda. Since I moved, I have had a breakout of pimples. I had pimples as a teenager but now at 55, how can I have pimples?

Allen

Dear Allen
Pimples (acne) develop when skin oil gland openings get blocked and skin bacteria come in to eat the oil leading to inflamed small swellings.
In teenagers, pimples result from increased amounts of testosterone, a male hormone. Women around the time of menopause may also get acne because of a drop in the female hormone oestrogen resulting in a relative rise in male hormone testosterone which does not fall equally.
Much as acne is mostly genetic and since you had acne in your youth, factors such as a change of diet to high sugar diets, stress of being away from home, pressure from helmets or mobile phones, use of greasy cosmetics and taking medications including steroids for allergy may have contributed to a flare up of your acne. These are the factors you need to look at and address.
If the pimples do not clear, then you need to see a skin specialist since what you call pimples may actually be another skin condition or if they are pimples, they may have different causes from those mentioned above.

When pressed, my nose produces a white substance
During a facial scrub at the salon, fat comes out of my nose. What is the cause?

James

Dear James
Its true excess fat on one’s body makes one obese but this fat is not always just spilling around including from the skin of the nose.
Humans have two types of sweat glands. Eccrine sweat glands that occur in palms and soles, and produce sweat to cool the body down.
Then the Apocrine glands that are found in particular areas of the body including armpits, nipples, ear canal, pubis, around the anal region and on the nose.
It could be these nose oil sweat glands when pressed ,they produce your said fat and therefore may have nothing to do with being fat.

Ask the Doctor
You asked and Dr Vincent Karuhanga is here to respond to all your questions.

Send your questions to: [email protected]