A newlywed couple, from Ambridge, Pennsylvania, got a life changing surprise on their wedding night when they discovered that the bride is allergic to her husband’s sperm.

Mike and Julie Boyde had been going out for two years when they got married and decided to have unprotected sex for the first time that evening. But almost immediately the bride was in unbearable pain – and eventually they discovered it was because of Mike’s sperm.

Now they have been forced to abandon their plans of conceiving a baby as it seems her own body destroys the sperm.

Mike, 27, and Julie, 26, started going out in college and became engaged two years later, finally having a dream wedding in 2005. But following the reception, as they enjoyed their first night as a married couple, things went badly wrong.

‘Before we were always very careful and used protection – this time we didn’t,’ said Julie, 26.  ‘We figured, “we’re married, if we get pregnant, we get pregnant”.’

But she added: ‘Pretty much right after I knew something was not right because I was in a lot of pain.

‘On a scale of one to ten, it’s pretty much ten,’ she said, describing the pain.

After numerous tests and doctors visits, the couple were eventually told that Julie suffers from seminal plasma hypersensitivity.

Dr Andrew Goldstein said: ‘The body recognizes the sperm as a foreign protein, like it would recognize a peanut allergen or a pollen so you have swelling, you have itching, you have inflammation of the nerve endings.’

It means that her body attacks Mike’s sperm, making it inactive.