Many men wonder if they can take ED medications like Sildenafil (Viagra) or Tadalafil (Cialis) just for fun, even if they don't have ...

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Can you take Sildenafil or Tadalafil just “for fun?”! | ED Medications

can you use tadalfil or cenil just for fun I'm Dr Reena Malik urologist and pelvic surgeon and welcome back to my Channel today we're going to talk about can you use these medications to have more fun in the bedroom and is it safe now these medications are designed to treat a rectile dysfunction and if you're new here I often tout the benefits of taking daily tadalfil for a variety of issues including erectile dysfunction but what if you're taking a larger dose of these medications and you don't have Eed this has actually become very popular and this is why today I'm going to answer the question is that really safe so first off let's just talk about how these actually work phosphodiester 5 Inhibitors or pde5 and pde5 is an enzyme that's found in the smooth muscle of the cells of the penis and so when this is active it essentially breaks down an important compound called cgmp and this is responsible for relaxing the smooth muscle cells so that blood can flow into the penis creating an erection and so when pde5 is around it breaks down that cgmp meaning that the muscles can no longer be relaxed so they contract and the blood leaves the penis meaning the erection goes away and so these medications pde5 Inhibitors like sophy tadalfil vardeny and aany they all work by blocking the pd5 enzyme and this then prevents that breakdown of cgmp allowing it to accumulate and leading to increased blood flow and improved erectile function sounds great and in fact it really is for men who have erectile dysfunction this medication is a GameChanger now what about if you're normal and healthy and you use it what happens and how common is it so in 2021 they published a review looking at 22 studies that investigated the recreational use of pd5 Inhibitors in a variety of different populations and clearly this has been an issue for many many years because the first study that came out about this was in the year 20 ,000 and that's only 2 years after s denil was actually introduced to the market so these studies which included a total of 25,000 men from different countries reported using recreational medications for erectile dysfunction even when they didn't have erectile dysfunction anywhere from 4 to 66% of the time so recreational use was more common in fact in men who were HIV positive who used other illicit drugs or engaged in unprotected sex and the reasons they reported in these studies for using these medications were pretty expected they wanted to have harder longer lasting erections they wanted to increase their sexual performance and frequency meaning they wanted to have more frequent sex and be able to delay ejaculation and because of curiosity and many of them also tended to combine these medications with alcohol cannabis or other recreational drugs and most of them obtained the medications not from their doctor but from friends without a prescription or through online sources now again is this dangerous now if you guys know anything about this channel you know I've made several videos about pd5 Inhibitors and I maintain that these are very very safe and effective medications for erectile dysfunction and they work very very well to help men get erections that allow them to have sex and they are generally very well tolerated with few side effects but what happens when you are a normal human being who doesn't have Ed and you're taking them recreationally so a few issues can come up and this sometimes could potentially be dangerous now there's been a few case studies in literature about crazy things that have happened but for the most part the major issues are one if you try to combine them with other maybe elicit substances sometimes you'll find that men will take them with substances like Canabis opioids or even something called chem sex drugs and this can then sometimes result in an exaggerated physiologic response so let's start with cannabis cannabis actually can inhibit the metabolism of these medications meaning that they would last longer and get metabolized slower than if you weren't taking cannabis and this can ultimately result in higher exposure than what is intended by the dose you're taking and what I say is when you're taking doses that are appropriate for you the risk of having any major unintended consequence or side effect that is irreversible is very very low but when you start taking higher and higher doses that's where we really don't know if this is going to be dangerous or lead to something called a priapism or an erection lasting longer than 4 hours now a lot of guys would joke oh that's great I can't would love to have an uction lasting longer than 4 hours but in reality after 4 hours there's no blood moving in and out of the penis and so you're actually losing oxygen to the tissues and that can cause damage which is why this is an emergency and you need to go to the hospital now next up remember I mentioned chemx so chemx drugs are essentially when you're taking pd5 Inhibitors and other club drugs all at the same time GHB mephedrone and they're all meant to enhance sexual function and generally people on these drugs will have sex for long periods of time because they're altered and and they're using these medications to enhance their ability to get an erection and so what then can happen is you can have Trauma from having prolonged periods of sex if you're having anal sex you can have rectal trauma if you're having penal penetrative sex you can get penal lacerations your partner can get vaginal lacerations it is certainly not um normal because of the time and duration you're spending doing something that involves quite a bit of friction and so of course nobody wants to end up in the ER after taking a bunch of illicit drugs because they've now injured their genitalia and of course when you're altered you're not going to make the best decisions so you may put yourself at higher risk of sexually transmitted infections um especially if you're having unprotected sex and you're not using a condom again because your altered now this is with or without pd5 Inhibitors but sometimes certain drugs can make it more difficult for you to get an erection and the pte five Inhibitors May then make it easier for you to get an erection and so now you're having more sex than you would have when you're altered making it a little bit higher risk and actually in some of these studies they found that using recreational pd5 Inhibitors was linked with having higher rates of unprotected sex and higher rates of sex retransmitted infections so while again these are not huge huge studies and they're certainly not representative of the entire population this is definitely a concern next up visual disturbances P5 Inhibitors can also affect and inhibit the enzyme pde6 which is found in the retina which causes transient meaning temporary visual disturbances unfortunately no study has shown that there has been actually permanent toxic effects to the Coro retinal tissue or the photo receptors as long as you're taking a therapeutic dose and you're not going above that again this is where we're concerned if you take too much can you have unintended consequences now there's also been rare cases of what we call non Artic aeic optic neuropathy and that can be permanent with pde5 inhibitor use again more likely when you're taking higher Doses and lastly heart problems can you get heart problems from taking these medications so the biggest contraindication with these medications is taking anything with nitrates in it so sometimes your doctor will prescribe nitroglycerin to put under under your tongue for chest pain and if you take that and these medications at the same time you can have severe hypotension meaning severe low blood pressure which can even be lifethreatening and so when you're taking it without a doctor's prescription you don't have anyone reviewing your medications to make sure that it's safe for you to take fortunately this is not common but if you're taking both those medications together or something like a nitrate that might be you know in some sort of recreational drug you can have really severe consequences now in the literature there are some case reports of a variety of other things that have happened to one or two people here or there so hard to say if those are true side effects of taking pd5 and hampers so generally speaking I would say that you know when you're taking a dose that is appropriate for you and you're not overdosing on the medication it's generally very safe but I think it's really important to realize that this is not necessarily going to give you all the things you're looking for it may not delay ejaculation it might not let you have multiple rounds of sex and it may interact with some of the things you're taking especially if you're altered so I think generally speaking if you're using it for getting a stronger firmer erection it will likely do that but at some point your erection is already working as good as it's going to work if you're naturally very healthy and so taking a medication may not give you the desired result and so I would absolutely talk to your doctor if you are struggling with issues with sexual function a lot of people will take them recreationally but it's because they've actually had an issue where maybe they had difficulty getting an erection or there might be underlying issues with them getting erections and they just want to have the confidence that they can get an erection in a high stake situation or with a new partner and so very reasonable to talk to your doctor about this now there is a theory right that if you take these every time you have sex you can get a psychological dependence on them like you might start thinking oh I always need this medication to help me get an erection now I tend to think that sometimes once you've had a few good erections you can then try go back and have normal erections on your own because it helps you rebuild your confidence a lot of issues with erections do have a psychogenic component to it do I think it's harmful to take it if you're having issues absolutely not do I think it's harmful to take a low dose every single day I don't think so but I do think if you're taking really high doses or you're taking it when you're not completely uh present meaning you're altered due to other drugs there can be really serious consequences so I hope that answered your question about is it okay to use these medications for fun if you guys are enjoying this content sign up for my newsletter each and every week you get an email from me which reviews an article or interesting research tidbit that I haven't shared on my YouTube channel we also answer one email newsletter memb question each and every week I share a little bit about what's going on in my life and give you an update on a couple things that are going on on the channel and podcast so you can learn more about it and decide if you have time to watch those videos or listen to them on the go and as always remember take care of yourself because you're worth it

Dr.

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