Effective ED Treatment. Private. Convenient. Trusted.
Doctor-prescribed ED medication delivered discreetly to your door.
Physicians
Private
Delivery
ED3 Max Dissolvable ED Pills
Long-lasting results up to 36 hours.
- Up to 36 Hour Window
- Improved Confidence
- Works When You Need It
Sildenafil 25mg
Proven effective treatment.
- Starts Working in 30–60 Min
- Effective, As Needed
- Trusted & Reliable
ED4 Chew Gum
Low daily dose for continuous readiness.
- Taken Once Daily
- Continuous Readiness
- Improves Confidence
Men with erectile dysfunction have plenty of medications to choose from these days. To find the one that’s best for you, you may have to give them all a try.
What kind of drugs should you take to manage erection problems? It’s a question that doesn’t always have an easy answer.
While it seems like you should be able to pop a pill and get the results you want, different drugs work in different ways, and what works well for one person may not work well at all for the next.
If you want to find the right solution for your problem but you’re on a limited budget, how can you shop around for ED drugs without going broke?
What ED Drugs Are Available?
Since the late 1990s when Viagra came onto the market, a number of different drugs have been created to manage erectile dysfunction. These include Cialis, Levitra, Viagra, Staxyn, and Stendra. More recently, U.S. consumers have been able to purchase generic equivalents of Viagra and Cialis, which are marketed as sildenafil citrate and tadalafil, respectively.
According to Prostate.net, all these medications belong to the same drug class known as phosphodiesterase (PDE) inhibitors because they all work by blocking the enzyme phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE5). Blocking the PDE5 enzyme increases the blood flow to the penis, which in theory should lead to an erection. In practice, other factors including other health conditions and the way that people take the drugs can sometimes interfere in this process.
Not All Drugs Work for Everyone
If you have a healthy lifestyle, eat well, exercise, and get enough sleep, then these drugs should work for you, shouldn’t they? They may work, or they may not. Here’s why drugs may not work for some people.
- Firstly, make sure that you do have a healthy lifestyle and that your body is working at its peak. If you have other health conditions that you don’t know about, then a drug that doesn’t work could be the incentive to have a physical and check out how your body is working as a whole.
- Secondly, drugs don’t always work well with other medications and nutrition choices either. You should be up front with your doctor about the medications, herbal supplements. and vitamins that you take, so the doctor can note any potential interactions with ED drugs. You should also note any potential bad interactions with the drugs, such as an upcoming surgery or the use of alpha blockers for blood pressure or prostate problems; these can lower your blood pressure when taken with ED pills, according to WebMD.
- Thirdly, make sure that you are actually getting aroused. Although it should be obvious, Men’s Health points out that these drugs don’t work unless that’s happening. When you get sexually excited, there is a chemical reaction that’s prompted by a signal from your brain. Two chemicals must be released, and your ED drug works with the second chemical. If you’re suffering from depression or in a challenging relationship, the first step of arousal may not occur. If you find that you’re trying many different drugs and they just aren’t working, it could be time to look at how your relationship is working or examine your mental health rather than trying yet another drug.
Changing Your Expectations
Sometimes, drugs don’t work as well because you’re not taking them correctly — or because you have unrealistic expectations about their effects on your body. Make sure that you are taking the drugs correctly before you abandon a specific drug altogether. According to Men’s Health, “69 percent of guys who reported that their penis problems persisted even after taking PDE5 inhibitors — first-line ED drugs such as Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra — were making some errors when downing the pills.”
Here’s how to make sure that your pills are actually working, so that you can assess whether a specific drug works for you:
- Read the instructions. A lot of problems can be avoided by taking these drugs exactly how they’re prescribed. Ensure that you’re taking the drugs early enough. Most of the ED drugs begin to work in 15 to 60 minutes. You can’t just take a pill and be ready to go; there is some planning involved.
- Having a romantic dinner? Check to ensure that you’re not taking Viagra or Levitra after you eat a fatty meal, because that can slow or even block the absorption of these drugs.
- If you decide to do something else after taking the drug and don’t engage in foreplay, don’t expect the drug to work as well as if you were sexually active. These drugs are made to work in specific situations, and without that situation, they won’t work as well, if at all.
- Change your expectations for how long the drugs will last. Do you want to have intercourse more than once in a 24-hour period? Most ED drugs last for four to six hours, and they aren’t designed to last for the entire day. If you’re looking for a drug that has a longer duration, talk with your doctor about your options.
- Talk with your health care professional about changing the dose. It could be that you’re not taking enough.
- Add other options in addition to using ED drugs. If you have not yet visited the doctor to see if you have one of many underlying conditions that can cause erectile dysfunction, make sure that you do this so that you are covering all possible causes in addition to using drugs such as Viagra.
Side Effects of ED Drugs
Some people find that certain ED drugs do not work for them, while others can’t tolerate specific drugs due to their side effects. If you experience side effects such as headaches, an upset stomach, congestion, back pain, hearing loss, or changes in vision, you may want to try a different drug. Other more serious side effects include painful erections, rashes, fainting, vision loss, and chest pain. Most men only experience mild symptoms if any, but if you experience side effects, it is important to check and see if a different option will allow you to enjoy the benefits of your ED medication without any side effects at all.
The Cost of ED Treatment
According to Harvard Health, one of the biggest limiting factors for men who are considering ED treatment is not the side effects: it’s the cost.
“It’s a common practice among insurers to limit the number of pills you can obtain per month.” The out of pocket cost per pill varies, but doses can range from $25 to $45 each.
This medication can be costly, and if it doesn’t really work for you, then you can spend a lot of money over time and get no results.
It’s also costly to experiment, because you could spend time and money on different pills, only to find frustration with each one.
Over time, you can find that your budget determines how often you have intercourse, and this can be unpleasant and awkward.
Is there a solution that will help you both experiment with different drugs and lower the cost once you’ve found the right drug to treat your erectile dysfunction?
How to Try Different Drugs
Medications can be expensive, and when you commit to a medication for a month or more and purchase what you need and then discover it doesn’t work for you, that’s both disappointing and costly. What can you do to lower the cost?
- Don’t abandon ship after one or two tries. Make sure that you have tried the medication exactly as prescribed, or you could overlook the best medication for you just because you made a mistake.
- Look online as well as at the local stores. Sometimes purchasing pills from a reliable online facilitator, such as eDrugstore.com, can be less expensive than buying medication at the local bricks-and-mortar pharmacy, because the latter has to fund its storefront in addition to the medication.
- See how low you can go when it comes to the number of pills you buy. Can you purchase just a few pills instead of investing in a larger bottle? This will allow you to try out those pills on a longer-term basis.
- Explore generic alternatives. These have a price difference on each dose that can really reduce the cost over time.
- Harvard Health also recommends that you talk with your doctor about pill splitting — getting a higher-dose pill and splitting it to get the lower dose that you need.
- Look at the other health care costs that you are paying, such as a consultation with a doctor or a drive to the store. For example, you could seek out an online source that also incorporates a physician review into your prescription, eliminating your copayment for an office visit and reducing the time that you need to take to schedule an appointment or take time off work.
Based in Tempe, Arizona, longtime online facilitator eDrugstore.com has been in business since the late 1990s. It offers a full range of ED medications, including both brand-name and generic products, as well as a limited selection of other lifestyle drugs. To learn more, visit eDrugstore’s Erectile Dysfunction page.
We specialize in providing our over 1,000,000 customers with relevant product and condition information created by our professional editorial staff which includes our team of medical writers, medical practitioners, and health educators. eDrugStore.com Staff on Facebook