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Viagra potentially has an off-label use in treating Raynaud’s Disease, a condition in which the extremities are overly sensitive to cold, with excessively compromised blood flow in cold conditions.
Raynaud’s Disease affects approximately 5% of the American population. That percentage might seem small, but according to the U.S. Census Population Clock in Dec 2013, 5% is over a million Americans.
Women are more prone to this condition than men. And so if you’re female, it might surprise you to learn that your doctor has prescribed Viagra instead of one of the traditional therapies. Advances in Raynaud’s research have shown that patients who use Viagra, which is a phosphodiesterase (PDE)-5 inhibitor, may find relief from symptoms when traditional therapies don’t work.
People with Raynaud’s Disease experience symptoms related to restricted blood flow. The extremities, such as fingers, ears, toes, and the tip of your nose are all common areas of the body to feel numb when symptoms flare.
Although it’s not considered a life-threatening condition in most people, Raynaud’s may be a secondary condition that accompanies a more serious one.
What Happens During a Raynaud’s Attack
Raynaud’s symptoms appear to be triggered by cold temperatures and stress. The Mayo Clinic explains that while doctors don’t yet fully understand the cause and connection, they have witnessed and documented it.
Most people experience tingling fingers and toes while outside in the cold, and sometimes the digits even go numb. Under normal conditions, the body slows down blood flow to extremities to help prevent hypothermia at its core. It’s a natural, self-preservation reaction.
It’s also not uncommon to feel chilled when you’re under stress. The symptoms might not be as severe as if you’re outside in frigid weather, but hands and feet may still go cold.
The difference in Raynaud’s patients is that these reactions go well beyond the ordinary. The body’s response to both cold and stress is an exaggeration, of sorts. Instead of the common reduced blood flow, blood vessels go through a period of vasospasm. That means blood vessels experience spasms and constrict, which dramatically reduces blood flow to the extremities, much more so than in a person without Raynaud’s.
When blood flow is restricted, skin may turn from its normal, healthy color to a pale, bluish tone, or even white in some patients. The appearance may resemble the first signs of frostbite. Although the risk of permanent tissue damage is not the same as with frostbite, some patients with severe symptoms may develop skin ulcers.
Symptoms may last a minute or much longer. And when the blood vessels relax and blood flow returns to normal, the skin’s color and sensations of numbness and cold usually return to normal, too.
There May, or May Not, be a More Serious Primary Condition
Secondary Raynaud’s is cause for more concern than if it’s a primary condition. Secondary means there’s another, more serious medical issue at the forefront, and Raynaud’s emerged as a result of it. Primary Raynaud’s is more common and less serious, but your doctor will want to determine whether there’s something else lurking.
Some common primary conditions and causes are scleroderma, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, carpal tunnel, smoking, or even exposure to certain chemicals such as vinyl chloride, explains Mayo Clinic.
Primary conditions can make this secondary disease dangerous. Jo Waters for the Daily Mail in the UK interviewed former PE teacher, Anne Mawdsley, who shared her lifelong experiences with Raynaud’s as a secondary condition to scleroderma.
In her youth, Mawdsley’s job meant she spent a lot of time outdoors. In cold weather, she had such pain in her extremities from restricted blood flow that it made her job difficult. The pain was so severe that she gave up PE to teach swimming lessons.
Throughout her life, Anne suffered through ulcerated skin and other very serious reactions to the long-term loss of blood flow. In primary Raynaud’s, blood vessels and skin often returns to normal soon after an attack; in secondary, the damage might last longer, or even become permanent.
Mawdsley tried numerous medications and therapies over the decades, both traditional and alternative. Imagine how surprised she was when her doctor prescribed Viagra. Now imagine how surprised she was when it provided dramatic and almost immediate improvement!
Secondary Raynaud’s can produce more severe attacks that take longer to withdraw, and it can leave lasting damage. If your doctor believes there’s a medical condition that’s causing your symptoms, and if everything you’ve tried has been subpar, Viagra might offer the relief you’ve been looking for.
Traditional Raynaud’s Disease Therapies Work, but Not Always
Your doctor may try more traditional therapies first. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t work as well as you’d like.
Calcium channel blockers are a common prescription. They work by relaxing the blood vessels so they’ll open up and send more of the blood supply to hands, feet, and other extremities. Mayo Clinic says they can also reduce how often you experience an attack, and lessen it’s effects.
Alpha blockers block hormones that sometimes cause restricted blood flow. When the hormone, norepinephrine, constricts those blood vessels, Cleveland Clinic says alpha blockers may help. They work in some people, but not all.
Vasodilators also open up blood vessels. A vasodilator cream, such as nitroglycerine, can even help heal ulcerated skin. Usually, the use of vasodilators for Raynaud’s Disease is considered “off-label.” This means the drug was developed for a different condition, and it may not be proven to help with another. In cases where calcium channel and alpha blockers don’t provide relief, a vasodilator might be worth a try.
Study Supports the Surprising, Yet Effective, Off-Label Therapy
Off-label use of prescription medications is nothing new. In 2008, Stanford School of Medicine listed several drugs that are commonly used to treat conditions other than the ones they were developed for. For example, warfarin, which is used to treat atrial fibrillation, is also used for hypertensive heart disease. Montelukast for asthma is given to some COPD patients.
The off-label use of vasodilators to treat Raynaud’s is already documented, but you might not realize that sildenafil, more commonly known as the erection medication Viagra, is a vasodilator, too.
In 2004, Dr. Roland Fries and a team of researchers gathered 20 patients, some with secondary and other with primary Raynaud’s. Their goal was a study, Sildenafil in the Treatment of Raynaud’s Phenomenon Resistant to Vasodilatory Therapy.
The background of the study was that Raynaud’s remains a problem because traditional therapies might not work well enough to provide real relief, and patients often have intolerable side effects with traditional therapies that prohibits their use.
In this study, patients were either given 50 mg of sildenafil, or a placebo, twice a day for a period of 4 weeks. The results showed that participants receiving sildenafil experienced attacks less often, attack duration was shorter, and the mean capillary flow velocity quadrupled. Participants with skin ulcerations experienced visible healing, which stopped or reversed after the study was over.
This study’s conclusions were simple: Sildenafil, or Viagra, is effective, and well tolerated by the patients with Raynaud’s.
When to Seek Non-Traditional Therapy
Your doctor may want to try other therapies before considering the vasodilator, sildenafil or Viagra. And some of them do work for some patients. But if your symptoms are severe, you might need something more.
When Raynaud’s is a secondary condition, the health risks are sometimes much higher than with primary Raynaud’s. In the case of Ms. Mawdsley, threats of amputation even arose from a skin ulceration that wouldn’t heal. Thankfully, she was able to avoid it. And if another disease is the cause, symptoms might not respond as well, or for as long, to calcium channel blockers or alpha blockers.
Primary Raynaud’s is known to produce less severe symptoms that respond much better to traditional therapies, but there is still no guarantee.
If you already have a diagnosis, but aren’t happy with the effectiveness of your treatment, it’s time to talk with your doctor. If you’re experiencing unusual symptoms such as an extreme reaction to cold or stress, including loss of color, pain, and numbness in the extremities, but haven’t known why, your doctor needs to know.
He might perform tests, ask a host of questions, and help you sort out your options.
Raynaud’s could be a chronic condition, which means symptoms can flare for years or throughout your lifetime. Curing or managing another medical condition that’s causing it can remove the symptoms from your life, or at least reduce them. With primary Raynaud’s, you might never find a cure, but you’re more likely to find relief.
Vasodilators, including Viagra, appear to be useful for the treatment of Raynaud’s. This is especially true for people who can’t take calcium channel or alpha blockers, or for people whose symptoms don’t respond well to them.
Who knew that a little blue pill could do so much more than it was designed to? You owe it to your health and comfort to find out whether it’s right for you.
eDrugstore.com sells the sildenafil drug, Viagra, which has been shown to help manage the symptoms of Raynaud’s disease in some patients. We offer the privacy and convenience of online ordering, and your discreetly-packed shipment arrives right at your door. If you’re not satisfied with your current treatment and are ready to try something else, see what eDrugstore.com has to offer.
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