In two patients, women, aged 32 and 30 years respectively, acute urinary retention after a viral infection was diagnosed. This is known as the Elsberg syndrome: urinary retention as a result of sacral myeloradiculitis. One of the patients had a blank history, the other suffered from a genital herpes infection. They were catheterised and instructed to perform catheterisation themselves. One was given an indwelling catheter. In the literature the Elsberg syndrome is mentioned relatively often after a genital herpetic infection. The treatment consists in (self)catheterisation. There may be hypesthesia in the sacral dermatomes. There is a strong tendency to recovering of spontaneous micturition in four to ten days.