VIAGRA Info

Two drugs, Levitra and Cialis. They work the same way as Viagra, blocking the same enzyme. Though it’s unlikely any one works better than Viagra overall, slight chemical differences mean that if one brand doesn’t work for a patient, another one might.

A 67-year-old Boston man with diabetes says Viagra only worked for him about 25% of the time, and only when taking the maximum dose of 100 mg. Even then, he says, it resulted in only a “mediocre” erection, while making him feel lightheaded and giving him headaches and an upset stomach. He recently took part in a Levitra study and was shocked by the difference. “I was very, very happy,” says the man, a retired cook.

Early studies show Levitra requires a smaller dose and works faster than Viagra with fewer side effects. In Europe, where Cialis has been studied longer, the drug is dubbed the “weekend pill,” because its effects last up to 36 hours.

On its Web site, Pfizer says Viagra remains effective for about four hours. But doctors say it actually lasts about twice as long. A recent study from Spain reported the drug continued working up to 12 hours after taking it.

However, it’s impossible to know how the drugs really stack up. Nobody has studied them against one another, and because the studies use different participants, the results can’t be compared.

First of all, nothing I am about to say is a substitute for professional medical advice.  This is simply an article about my experiences with Viagra.

I was having difficulty with the quality of my erections.  I wasn’t getting as hard as I used to be, as often, or as long.  So I went to my doctor, and was shocked when he quickly and easily wrote a prescription for Viagra.  I was so shocked, I had considered that he might do this, but it was still a shock to have the prescription at hand.  As he reached for his prescription pad, he gave me the quick run down on the drug.

The first thing he said was… “This drug will not make erections happen, it only lets them happen, by allowing increased blood flow to the penis.”  Elaborating on this he said… “you still need to be well rested etc…”  I did not let on to the doctor that I didn’t know that lack of sleep could hinder erectile functions.  Now from my understanding there are many other things… attraction to your woman and stress, to name a couple.

I had not realized the effects of lack of sleep, and I had been burning the candle at both ends for a long time.  Now, first off, as a typical guy, I am embarrassed about the need of this drug.  So I enter the denial stage, and blame things on lack of sleep, and excessive stress, and a couple of other things.  So for a couple of months, I reduced my stress, got plenty of sleep and had a pretty good sex life.  Everything worked pretty well when I was taking care of my-self, getting plenty of sleep, eating well, and enjoying life.  But things still weren’t perfect.

So I still had this prescription in my wallet.  So I drove to the next town and got the prescription filled (to avoid seeing anybody I knew).  Now the directions said to take a half hour before having sex.  So I popped the little blue pill with a glass of water and jumped in the shower.  By the time I got out of the shower it was “GAME ON!”.

I didn’t find myself much harder than I usually was, but I made love to my woman for hours, and it stayed hard all of the time.  Now this is being told from the perspective of a guy who certainly isn’t impotent, and I’m sure everyone’s experiences will vary.  But for me, this was an incredible experience!!  I sure felt a lot better about myself afterwards.  I guess the moral of the story might be “you don’t have to be completely impotent to want to try this out.”  I think there are a lot of people out there who can benefit from this drug, who don’t know it.  This little blue pill has changed my life!!  And I’m only using it on occasion.  If not, I’d never make it to work in the mornings.  I screw for hours on this stuff, and stay hard for my honey for hours, even after my orgasms.  It has been incredible for me.

Now I mentioned earlier that it didn’t seem to make me much harder, but rather hard longer.  The last couple of times I’ve tried the pill, I’ve noticed it to be much harder than previous times.  I’m also noticing a “residual effect”, that I’m much harder the night after, etc…  This may be physical, and may be psychological, but who cares!!  I love this stuff!!

The size of the dose does matter. In studies of patients who took 50 mg of Viagra, 70% reported improved erections after 12 weeks of use. But that number jumped to 82% with 100 mg, the maximum recommended dose.

If 100 mg is good, you might think 200 mg would be better, but that wasn’t the case. In studies, 200 mg of Viagra didn’t work any better than 100 mg.

In fact, above 100 mg, pretty much all you get out of more Viagra is more side effects. Abnormal vision is a problem only 11% of the time with 100 mg, but jumps to between 40% and 50% with 200 mg, for instance. One-quarter of men who use 200 mg experience facial flushing, while 15% report stomach problems.

There’s been little study of what happens when Viagra is taken at very high doses. But in one small study of 20 healthy men who took between 200 mg and 800 mg of Viagra, 95% experienced some side effect that lasted far longer than usual. Vision problems lasted as long as eight hours among the 50% of men who experienced them. And one subject taking 600 mg reported an erection lasting five hours, a potentially harmful problem.

I am a healthy 24 year old male, up to this point never had any problems sexually. Well, after years of hard work, I got my dream girl- an insatiable crush since my teens. Unfortunately, the pressure to perform became too much initially for me to bear and I found myself not rising to the occasion as I would have liked or as I have in the past.

On the advice of a friend, I tried 50 mg Viagra (100 split in half) and WOW, incredible. I felt like a little pressure in my face, but all that went to the wayside after I climaxed 4 times throughout the night. She even had her first orgasm ever through intercourse! After using the other half, my anxiety is a thing of the past and I am now back to my old self. All I needed was Viagra to help me tell myself “you can do it.”

“Before I took part in the study I was heavily depressed. I was continually arguing with my wife and generally making life hell for her and my children…entering the study saved our family from much grief
… it probably saved my marriage and possibly my life.”

Patient during Viagra trial

Since gaining its license in 1998, there have been over 10 million prescriptions worldwide for Viagra.

All of this from a medicine that started life as an angina treatment but had some unusual side effects.

Viagra improves erections by increasing vasodilation of the spongy tissue in the penis and the arteries that supply it with blood. It achieves this by inhibiting the PDE enzyme which breaks down the signalling molecule cGMP.

By preventing this break down, Viagra enhances the natural mechanism involved in achieving and maintaining an erection. This helps to treat sufferers of erectile dysfunction.

Patients take a tablet containing 25, 50 or 100mg of Viagra around an hour before intercourse.

All medicines have side effects and Viagra is no exception. Reported effects include headaches, hot flushes and indigestion. It should not be taken by people who are also using nitrate-medicines for heart conditions. Viagra, like other medications, must only be taken following the advice of a doctor.

On CNN last night, long-time GOP political strategist Ed Rollins called it the most uncomfortable response to a question that he’s seen in his more than 40 years in politics:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain was asked Wednesday if he agrees with one of his advisers, Carly Fiorina, that it’s unfair for health insurers to pay for men to get Viagra but not for women to get birth control pills.

CNN has video of the exchange McCain had with a reporter.

“I certainly do not want to discuss that issue,” McCain says at the opening.

“I don’t know enough about it to give you an informed answer,” he adds after a long pause.

Viagra is one of the best-known drugs of all time:

• Google lists over 17 million Web pages that use the word “Viagra.” For comparison, Google lists only 3.3 million pages containing the word “aspirin” and only 936,000 containing the word “Tylenol.”
• Billions of spame-mail messages advertise Viagra every day. There is so much Viagra spam, in fact, that Pfizer (the maker of Viagra) has a page addressing the problem, called Avoid Fake Viagra, prominently listed on Viagra.com.
• Pfizer has spent untold millions of dollars advertising Viagra, so you see advertisements for the drug constantly on TV.
• Pfizer claims on its Web site that nine Viagra pills are dispensed every second — nearly 300 million tablets per year.
• The name recognition of Viagra is so good that nearly every adult in America has heard of the drug and can tell you what it does.

What Viagra does is simple: When it works as intended, Viagra causes a man who is sexually stimulated to get an erection.

How does Viagra do that? And why does Viagra work only if the man is sexually stimulated? For that matter, what causes an erection in the first place? In this article, we’ll answer all of those questions and more.

This is actually a fascinating story — it involves the technology of the human body and the techniques that scientists use to control different parts of the body with drugs. And in the case of Viagra, the story starts with the technology of the penis…

A slice of cool, fresh watermelon is a juicy way to top off a Fourth of July cookout and one that researchers say has effects similar to Viagra — but don’t necessarily expect it to keep the fireworks all night long.

Watermelons contain an ingredient called citrulline that can trigger production of a compound that helps relax the body’s blood vessels, similar to what happens when a man takes Viagra, said scientists in Texas, one of the nation’s top producers of the seedless variety.

Found in the flesh and rind of watermelons, citrulline reacts with the body’s enzymes when consumed in large quantities and is changed into arginine, an amino acid that benefits the heart and the circulatory and immune systems.

“Arginine boosts nitric oxide, which relaxes blood vessels, the same basic effect that Viagra has, to treat erectile dysfunction and maybe even prevent it,” said Bhimu Patil, a researcher and director of Texas A&M’s Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center. “Watermelon may not be as organ-specific as Viagra, but it’s a great way to relax blood vessels without any drug side effects.”

Todd Wehner, who studies watermelon breeding at North Carolina State University, said anyone taking Viagra shouldn’t expect the same result from watermelon.

“It sounds like it would be an effect that would be interesting but not a substitute for any medical treatment,” Wehner said.

The nitric oxide can also help with angina, high blood pressure and other cardiovascular problems, according to the study, which was paid for by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

More citrulline — about 60 percent — is found in watermelon rind than in the flesh, Patil said, but that can vary. But scientists may be able to find ways to boost the concentrations in the flesh, he said.

Citrulline is found in all colors of watermelon and is highest in the yellow-fleshed types, said Penelope Perkins-Veazie, a USDA researcher in Lane, Okla.

She said Patil’s research is valid, but with a caveat: One would need to eat about six cups of watermelon to get enough citrulline to boost the body’s arginine level.

“The problem you have when you eat a lot of watermelon is you tend to run to the bathroom more,” Perkins-Veazie said.

Watermelon is a diuretic and was a homeopathic treatment for kidney patients before dialysis became widespread.

Another issue is the amount of sugar that much watermelon would spill into the bloodstream –a jolt that could cause cramping, Perkins-Veazie said.

Patil said he would like to do future studies on how to reduce the sugar content in watermelon.

The relationship between citrulline and arginine might also prove helpful to those who are obese or suffer from type-2 diabetes. The beneficial effects — among them the ability to relax blood vessels, much like Viagra does — are beginning to be revealed in research.

Citrulline is present in other curcubits, like cucumbers and cantaloupe, at very low levels, and in the milk protein casein. The highest concentrations of citrulline are found in walnut seedlings, Perkins-Veazie said.

“But they’re bitter and most people don’t want to eat them,” she said.

What Viagra can provide is a reduction of anxiety about whether an erection can be attained and can create a situation for men where intercourse actually is another option in lovemaking (where it may not have been readily available previously). However, we want to stress here, that for healthy relationships, the act of intercourse is best used when it feels most appropriate, but please, not as the goal of lovemaking. We still believe that the goal of lovemaking should be the conveyance between the partners of their love, caring and nurturing of each other. In this regard, we see the potential of Viagra as a valuable “tool.”

Another area where Viagra can make a valuable contribution is in the reduction of “condom anxiety” on the part of men. Many men are reluctant to use condoms because of fears of loss of sensitivity and/or failure to attain or maintain an erection. The increased sensitivity caused by Viagra could go a long way towards encouraging a greater use of condoms and thus, safer sex practices during intercourse.

Also, trials have begun to assess the value of Viagra in increasing the blood flow and perhaps, vaginal and clitoral sensitivity in women. A couple of weeks after Gary’s experiment, Shama elected to try Viagra (also in the interest of science). “When Gary and I made love this time, I noticed a marked increase in sensitivity in my genitals which did heighten my pleasure. He also commented that I felt “wetter and juicier” than usual. I believe that for me, as well, I was able to “stay with it” for a more extended period of time.”