You can get Viagra in single-serve packets, which were designed for convenience.
Viagra, the little blue pill that revolutionized the treatment of erectile dysfunction, is now available in single-dose packets. For those of you who have yet to try Viagra, this single pack makes it easy and practical to give the medication a test run to see how it works for you, and it’s also a convenient form to carry when you’re on the road.
You can buy Viagra single packs in either 50- or 100-milligram strengths. While 50 milligrams is the recommended starting dose, some men may find they need 100 milligrams of Viagra to get the job done. However, for those who can get by with 50 milligrams, a pill splitter can effectively convert a 100-milligram tablet into two 50-milligram doses.
Clever Marketing Ploy
For Pfizer, which holds the Viagra patent, this new marketing ploy offers yet another way to maximize its sales of the little blue pill.
Viagra, the first oral prescription drug for the treatment of impotence, was discovered pretty much by accident. This serendipitous discovery occurred during clinical trials of sildenafil citrate — Viagra’s active ingredient — as a treatment for high blood pressure and angina pectoris. Although the compound wasn’t chalking up very impressive results as a treatment for those cardiovascular ills, it was producing an interesting side effect among male participants in the clinical trials.
Shift in Direction
While sildenafil citrate — codenamed UK92480 for the purposes of the clinical trials — clearly wasn’t cutting the mustard as a treatment for angina or high blood pressure, it was producing erections among male test subjects, some of whom had been impotent for years. This caught the attention of Pfizer’s scientists who decided to take their study of the drug in a new direction.
Chris Wayman, a senior scientist with Pfizer, was charged with investigating this newly discovered property of sildenafil citrate. In an interview with BBC News, Wayman recounted what happened next. In order to run the tests he had in mind, Wayman created a “model man” in the laboratory. This was accomplished by taking a set of test tubes and filling each with an inert solution, to which was then added a sample of penile tissue taken from an impotent man.
Jolt of Electricity Mimics Arousal
To mimic what happens to a man during arousal, each sample of penile tissue was hooked up to a source of electric current. According to Wayman, when a pulse of electricity was first sent to these tissue samples, nothing happened. However, when sildenafil citrate was added to the inert solution in which the penile tissue samples were kept, a jolt of electricity caused the blood vessels in the penile tissue to relax as they would normally as part of the erectile process.
“What was amazing about this study,” Wayman told the BBC, “was that we saw a restoration of the erectile response. Now we were on to something which could only be described as special.” These and subsequent tests showed that the chemical compound facilitated the erectile process in men who had lost the natural ability to get and keep an erection hard enough for sexual intercourse.
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First Oral Treatment for Impotence
Prior to the marketing of Viagra in 1998, there was no FDA-approved oral treatment for erectile dysfunction. The only options open to men with persistent symptoms of impotence were penile implants and penile injection therapy. The latter required the injection of alprostadil or a similar substance directly into the penis shortly before sexual activity was to commence. Alprostadil is virtually identical to a naturally occurring substance found in the body that helps keep blood vessels open to maximize blood flow.
After multiple rounds of testing, Pfizer’s new impotence medication, now dubbed Viagra, was sent to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration with a petition asking the agency to approve the drug for the treatment of erectile dysfunction. FDA gave the little blue pill its stamp of approval on March 27, 1998. In the years that followed, the drug regulatory agency gave the green light to similar compounds, which all belong to a family of drugs known as PDE5 inhibitors.
How Erectile Process Works
In a healthy male, the erectile function usually originates in the brain in response to feelings of sexual desire or physical stimulation of the male genitals. As such stimuli are detected, the brain sends a flood of nitric oxide coursing toward the pelvic region. The nitric oxide in turn triggers secondary chemical reactions, one of which produces a chemical compound known as cyclic guanosine monophosphate, or cGMP.
The cGMP compound plays a key role in the erectile process by relaxing the smooth muscles lining blood vessel walls, thus increasing blood flow to the penis and facilitating erection. However, in men whose vascular systems may already be somewhat compromised because of atherosclerosis or other pathologies, cGMP may have trouble getting the job done because it is prematurely broken down by enzymes known as phosphodiesterase-5, or PDE5 for short.
How Viagra Works
Here’s where Viagra and the other PDE5 inhibitors come into play. By holding the body’s PDE5 enzymes temporarily at bay, these drugs allow cGMP to enable the erectile process and sustain erection long enough for sexual activity to occur. Viagra’s duration of action is somewhere between four and six hours, after which its effects wear off and the PDE5 enzymes can then go about their task of breaking down cGMP.
Viagra and the other PDE5 inhibitors are designed to treat erectile dysfunction that occurs because of compromised blood flow to the penis, which has been found responsible for the vast majority of ED. Men whose impotence is either psychological in origin or traceable to traumatic damage to the pelvic region are unlikely to get relief from these medications.
Effective and Safe
Extensive clinical trials of Viagra have shown the medication to be both effective and safe for most healthy men. However, it should not be taken by men who have been told to avoid the exertion of sexual activity because of heart disease or other physical ailments. Viagra’s use is also incompatible with nitrate-based drugs, meaning that men who take nitroglycerin for the treatment of angina should not take Viagra at the same time. Both PDE5 inhibitors and nitrates cause a sharp drop in blood pressure. Taken together, such a precipitous decline in blood pressure could be life-threatening.
Most Viagra side effects are mild and tend to disappear upon continued use of the drug. Such adverse effects include back or muscle pain, dizziness, facial flushing, headache, nausea, runny or stuffy nose, and upset stomach. Although rare, Viagra has had some more serious side effects, all of which should receive immediate medical attention. These serious side effects include erections lasting four hours or more and a sudden loss of hearing or vision.
Men looking for a reliable online supplier of Viagra and other PDE5 inhibitors might want to consider eDrugstore.com, which is a member of the Secure Medical family of online pharmacies. It sells only FDA-approved medications that are dispensed by licensed U.S. pharmacies. For those who don’t yet have a prescription for Viagra, eDrugstore can arrange an online consultation — free of charge — with one of its team of licensed U.S. physicians. Click here to check out eDrugstore’s ED medication guide.
Don Amerman is a freelance author who writes extensively about a wide array of nutrition and health-related topics.
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