Viagra (sildenafil citrate)

Viagra is a drug used for the treatment of erectile dysfunction in men. The drug is FDA approved in the U.S. and is available from the pharmaceutical company Pfizer. There are also several generic preparations available worldwide. This drug has became on the most popular drugs for erectile dysfunction today. For the purposes of steroid users the use of Viagra is rather limited beyond that of a “recreational” purpose. One exception to this may be once a steroid user is coming off of anabolic-androgenic steroids and have suffered a significant reduction in their ability to perform sexually and/or their sex drive. The use of drugs such as sildenafil citrate can help to alleviate some of the difficulty many have during this period of time.

Type 5 phosphodiesterase isoenzyme inhibitors such as sildenafil citrate work by causing the smooth-muscles to relax in the cavernosal arteries. This in turn allows penile vasodilation and erection to occur in response to sexual stimuli. This response allows one to achieve and maintain an erection and will help with doing so for a number of causes of the erectile dysfunction.

The effects produced by type 5 phosphodiesterase isoenzyme inhibitors can include other benefits such as a reduction in blood pressure and exhibiting other cardioprotective properties. This reduction in blood pressure includes a lowering of arterial pressure, systolic and diastolic. Other heart protecting effects such as an improvement in atherosclerotic disease and endothelial function can also be observed with sustained use of the drug. These benefits, while having been proven under clinical settings, have not been put into practice in any substantive way by medical professionals on any large scale. Nearly all of the research and scientific study of the drug sildenafil citrate has been conducted using male subjects. A small number of studies however have been done with female users. For the most part these studies have indicated that for the purpose of sexual function there appears to be a benefit that females could render from the use of sildenafil citrate; at this time however not enough research has been completed to be able to make recommendations about the safe and effective use of sildenafil citrate for females. For the most part sildenafil citrate is well tolerated by the vast majority of users, but some risks do exist. The most commonly referred to side effect is long lasting erections requiring medical intervention. These are relatively rare and are almost never seen when a user is using the correct dosage of the drug. But if such a condition does arise the user should seek medical attention as significant physical harm can come to the user if they allow the symptom to persist for a lengthy period of time. A more dramatic and concerning negative side effect that has more recently been publicized to a great extent is visual impairment linked to the use of type 5 phosphodiesterase isoenzyme inhibitors such as sildenafil citrate. This visual impairment is caused when blood flow to the optic nerve is disrupted; a condition known as nonarteritic ischemic optic neuropathy.

For most users, doses ranging between 50-100 mg should be sufficient to achieve the desired results, but as always users may use larger doses depending on their tolerance for the drug and/or their specific needs. The active life of sildenafil citrate is thirty-six to forty-eight hours; this long active life of course being one of the benefits of the drug and a half-life of approximately seventeen and one half hours, therefore one dose should be adequate for three or four days unless the user believes that the initial dosage that was administered was not enough to produce the expected results. This means that at most two or three doses per week would be the absolute maximum that a user would need to administer.