What Doctors Don't Tell YouMale readers may recall their mothers warning them that a certain adolescent practice could make them go blind. Well, irony or ironies, it seems that the drugs designed to improve their sex lives can have exactly the same effect.
Drug regulators have received reports that suggest drugs such as Viagra (sildenafil citrate), Cialis (tadalafil) and Levitra (vardenafil hydrochloride) – all designed to improve erectile dysfunction – could be causing sudden vision loss.
Apparently, the drugs cause a reaction known as NAION, or non-arteritic ischemic vision loss, where the blood flow is suddenly blocked to the optic nerves. Maybe it’s too busy going somewhere else.
It’s not clear at the moment if the drugs are directly causing the reaction, or if there is a contributory factor at play such as high blood pressure or diabetes.
In any event, patients are urged to contact their doctor if they have suffered vision loss while on one of the drugs, the Food and Drug Administration urges.
The wonder is that doctors have received enough reports from worried patients to alert the drug regulators in the first place. For every complaint received, there must be another 20 wishing to God they’d listened to their mothers.
Daniel Redwood DC
Tom Ferguson MD
