Generic Viagra

One drug in particular, Viagra, has become an international phenomenon since its launch in the late 1990s.

The drug, also known as Sildenafil, does not directly give a man an erection. It works by boosting the natural mechanism that leads to an erection.

When a man is sexually aroused, certain tissues in his penis relax. This allows large amounts of blood to flow into the muscle, thus producing an erection. Viagra helps by elevating the levels of the chemical that causes the tissues to relax.

These effects were discovered accidentally. The drug was originally developed to improve blood supply to the heart in angina sufferers.

In a small number of cases, people who have taken Viagra have complained of headaches, flushing and stomach-ache.

It can also cause some visual problems, including an increased sensitivity to light, blurred vision or an inability to tell the difference between blue and green. Men who are already taking medicines that contain nitrates, such as nitro-glycerine, are strongly advised not to use Viagra because the combination can lower blood pressure too much.

Another drug, Levitra, works first time for nearly nine out of 10 men (87%) who are experiencing erection difficulties.

I had to opportunity to have sex with 2 women at the same time and wanted to make sure that I could fully please both of them.  I took 50mg of Viagra about 20 minutes before engaging in any sexual activity.  For some reason, I was expecting it to “kick in”.  During that first 20 minutes, I felt nothing and wondered if it was really going to work.  However, as soon as the first girl started to touch me I got an immediate raging hard-on.  I couldn’t remember being that hard in a long time.

After receiving oral from the first girl, we had great sex which resulted in a very powerful facial orgasm.  After that, the 2 girls played with each other for about 5 minutes and I moved on to the 2nd girl.  This was the real test, what would happen?  To my delight, as soon as the 2nd girl started touching me, the result was the same as before, a very stiff and full hard-on just 5 minutes after my first orgasm.  I was delighted.  I had sex for about 20 minutes with the 2nd girl and gave her the same final treatment, very satisfying for both parties.  Now here’s where I was totally blown away.  After have sex for 20 minutes and shooting my 2nd orgasm, my penis didn’t really go down much.  It stayed about 70% hard.  I immediately moved back over to the first girl and started in on her again.  I was fully hard withing a couple minutes and giving her another hard ride.  I was in heaven!!!

I can’t say enough good things about my experience with Viagra.  There were zero side effects and if a girl hadn’t been touching me, I don’t think I would have known I even took it.  It’s an amazing, amazing drug.  All I can say is Thank You Viagra!

Athletes looking for a performance boost appear to be turning to a little blue pill more usually taken for its off-the-field benefits: Viagra.

But experts are divided over whether it actually offers athletes an edge.

Some sports authorities say the drug is now finding a following among athletes. It isn’t clear how many might be taking it in hopes of improving athletic performance.

It also has attracted the attention of the World Anti-Doping Agency. The agency is studying Viagra’s effects in athletes, but hasn’t yet banned it. Viagra is not on the International Olympic Committee’s list of prohibited drugs, so athletes can take it at the Beijing Olympics.

Viagra, also known as sildenafil, is manufactured by Pfizer Inc. It originally was developed as a heart drug; its use as a treatment for erectile dysfunction was accidentally discovered.

The drug works by increasing the effects of nitric oxide, which makes blood vessels expand. That should theoretically allow blood cells to get more oxygen from the lungs. It also might improve heart function.

Viagra also is approved to treat pulmonary hypertension, a condition in which the lungs’ blood vessels tighten. Doctors have used the drug experimentally to treat pregnant women with high blood pressure and to ward off jet lag.

But whether Viagra makes athletes faster, higher or stronger is uncertain.

“Just because you have more nitric oxide doesn’t mean that you are going to be a better athlete,” said Anthony Butch, director of the Olympic Analytical laboratory at UCLA. “If you have all the nitric oxide you need, and if you generate more from Viagra, it’s not clear what effect that would have.”

Still, some preliminary studies have shown that cyclists taking Viagra improved their performances by up to 40 percent.

“If you have more oxygen going to your muscles, that’s more energy and that makes you a better athlete,” said Dr. Andrew McCullough, a sexual health expert at the New York University School of Medicine. “Even if it only gives you a 10 percent increase, in peak athletes that is enough to win.”

McCullough said Viagra is only likely to help athletes such as runners, cyclists or skiers - sports where endurance and speed are key. Viagra does not work directly on muscles, so will not make athletes stronger.

Athletes often mistakenly assume a drug will work in their bodies the same way it does in sick people. For instance, in people with lung problems who take Viagra, the drug widens their blood vessels so they can absorb more oxygen.

Athletes taking Viagra might hope the drug would expand their already normal-sized vessels to give them extra lung capacity. But some experts say that’s unlikely.

“Viagra corrects problems in people who are in a challenged or diseased state,” said Ian McGrath, a professor of physiology at the University of Glasgow.

In normal people, McGrath said, the body’s own regulating system is not so easily superseded by drugs, and taking Viagra might be useless. But McGrath also said taking Viagra theoretically could help people breathe better in heavily polluted cities, such as Beijing.

“If you have some sort of illness from pollution, then Viagra might help,” he said.

Scientists at laboratories that conduct drug tests say they haven’t noticed a suspicious spike in samples containing Viagra.

“We see it as much as we see ibuprofen or aspirin or antibiotics that are not prohibited,” said Christiane Ayotte, director of a WADA-accredited laboratory in Canada. “Athletes may be taking it, but they may be taking it for non-doping purposes.”

Ayotte thinks it would be unrealistic to ban Viagra.

“Are athletes going to have to submit therapeutic-use exemptions for Viagra?” she asked. “That would be quite humiliating.”

Other doctors hypothesized that Viagra’s more well-known effects on men’s sex lives might be the ultimate explanation for any enhanced athletic abilities.

“It could be that athletes are taking Viagra and then having vigorous sexual activity,” said Dr. Gerard Varlotta, director of sports rehabilitation at New York University’s Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine. Varlotta doubted that Viagra itself could improve an athlete’s performance.

“If athletes are euphoric after sex after taking Viagra, they may be euphoric about their athletic endeavors,” Varlotta said. “That may make them a better athlete.”

This wouldn’t be the first Irish story concocted out of pure mist. But, as CBS News Correspondent Mark Phillips reports, this mist doesn’t come drifting up the bay on tiny leprechaun feet.

This mist comes steaming out of the industrial exhaust of a pharmaceutical plant in the little town of Ringaskiddy on Ireland’s south coast. And this mist, they say here, has turned this gritty little port town into Europe’s new capital of love.

“There isn’t a man without a smile on his face or a woman without a bigger smile,” says Geraldine Dermitty.

The source of all this levity: the plant where they make something called sildenafil citrate, which just happens to be the active ingredient in Viagra.

And the locals swear something is escaping from the plant that’s made them more, how shall we say, caring. Just ask little 11-week-old Sam’s delighted dad.

“Well he’s a good result since I moved down here, yes,” says Kieran Kramer.

The local infant population, locals say, has soared.

When his son was born, Kramer says the maternity ward was packed.

“We were lucky to get a bed,” he says.

About the only people who don’t find this all mildly amusing are the ones who run the plant.

Asked if he finds it at all funny, Viagra plant manager Paul Duffy says, “No, not particularly.”

Plant officials say emissions are strictly controlled by Irish environmental laws. No chance of a leak.

“It’s a myth that could not happen and that does not happen,” says Duffy.

The locals have another view. Just look at the windsocks around the plant, they say. The one up wind and away from the exhaust is flaccid, while the one down wind gets the full effect.

Of course there may be another reason for Ringaskiddy’s allegedly newfound friskiness, and it might have less to do with proximity to the Viagra plant than with proximity to another famous Irish landmark. Blarney and the Blarney Stone is just down the road.

And whatever’s in the air here, it hasn’t interfered with the Blarney Stone’s gift of the gab.

“Well you get the odd aroma from it, not an odor but an aroma - a wiff,” says Duirmaid Considine.

So what does Considine do?

“I take a deep breath and hope for the best,” he says.

Viagra started off as a rather disappointing treatment for angina but doctors began to notice that patients were very reluctant to stop taking it, even after surgery had dealt with any angina problems. One by one the Viagra users confessed that a wonderful thing had happened after Viagra: their sex life had dramatically improved. Many of these Viagra patients had medical reasons why they may have had erectile problems, ranging from the impotence (erectile dysfunction) caused by blood pressure drugs, heart problems and general to health. Doctors are trained to report all unexpected side effects, and the reports on these positive Viagra “side effects” kept pouring in.

But was Viagra safe to use? Doctors reported that 70% were helped by Viagra to a better sex life, while 16% got headaches, 10% severely, others had other symptoms such as indigestion or a blue tinge to their sight.

These diamond shaped Viagra pills cost around $12 for a single tablet. The effect soon wears off so the demand can only be guessed at. If just 2 million men decide to use Viagra regularly (twice a week) then the US demand alone will be around 200 million tablets a year or up to $2 billion in market value. But that’s just the US.. British private clinics are charging around double the US price per Viagra tablet (£16) but are reluctant to do so without a full diagnostic screen costing around £300-400.

And then people wondered about Viagra for women, so-called female Viagra (new drugs for female sexual dysfunction). Although there is little evidence that Viagra helps women who take it themselves to improve their love-life, Viagra may help pregnant women with placental insufficiency, by improving blood supply to the uterus. Some doctors also think it may have a slight effect in assisting conception in some forms of infertility - perhaps for the same reason.

I am taking high blood pressure and cholesterol medicine and could not achieve a good hard on at all. It was very depressing considering my wife is a beautiful woman. So, I decided to talk to my doctor about Viagra to help me get get a good boner back in my life. I took it about two hours before sex and it was unbelievable! Now I can go three times in a few hour and when I cum I explode inside of her. It has definitely put the thrill back in sex for me.

I have the pharmacist split a 100 mg pill in four for me so I take 25 mg at a time. When I want to go all night I take the full 100 mg. I do experience some facial flushing and it feels like my body is getting warm all over. My wife appreciates the good hard-ons again and she knows when I take the pill, watch out!

I am 75 and my husband is 80. He’s been using Viagra for the last 5 years. The problem is that he enjoys it too much, and frankly, I need a rest. It’s not that I don’t want sex – I’d just prefer that he not be so, you know, vigorous. How do I get him to stop taking it? If I hide his pills he just gets more.

Once the magic blue genie is out of the pill bottle, it’s difficult to get it back in. It’s unlikely that your husband will give Viagra up entirely. One tack would be to inform him that until the drug companies come up with a female equivalent, he will have to moderate himself. Or you could explain that while you enjoy his amorousness, you really prefer to cuddle most evenings. Encourage him to take up some hobbies into which he can channel his “energies”. Perhaps he’ll wear himself out and fall asleep before he has a chance to take his nightly dose.

Perhaps the strangest thing about the trial of eight men and one woman for conspiring to supply counterfeit medicines was that some of them only met each other for the first time in the dock of Kingston Crown Court.

As this lengthy trial developed from the scheduled 12 weeks to a shade under nine months the defendants of what the prosecution alleged to be a global conspiracy got to know each other “quite well”.

They were often seen chatting merrily to each other both in the dock and outside the courtroom.

These new friendships were formed during a case which was rooted in the backstreet factories of China, India and Pakistan where counterfeit medicines, rip-offs of household western names, such as Pfizer’s Viagra or Eli Lilly’s Cialis are produced illegally and in huge quantities.

UK raids

Gary Haywood was the link between these factories and his co-conspirators.

It was the chance interception by UK customs officers of a parcel containing 12,000 fake Viagra tablets and addressed to Haywood that eventually led to a series of raids in London and Leicestershire and criminal charges against the nine defendants in this trial.

The prosecution case alleged a sophisticated network whereby the counterfeit medicines were repackaged as they were shipped by courier from one country to another and the accused passed details of orders and shipments to each other by e-mail.

This use of modern technology allowed members of the conspiracy to keep at arms-length from each other.

A complicated trail of paperwork and computer documents was alleged to show how the defendants attempted to cover-up their tracks and their multi-million pound profits.

Aladdin’s cave

The scale of the counterfeiting was exposed when Haywood subsequently boasted to undercover investigators that “within 6-8 weeks I will be able to supply up to a million tablets”.

At the same time he was supplying Ashish Halai, the lynchpin of the operation, with thousands upon thousands of pills to ship abroad.

The Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) duly raided Haywood’s Leicestershire home and found what they have described as an “Aladdin’s cave of fake medicines” worth over £1.5m.

Haywood was found guilty of all 11 counts against him including two of money laundering.

The bulk of the pills were sold online to both wholesale and retail customers, primarily in the US and the Bahamas.

The five who were convicted were ultimately relying on the embarrassment of individuals at obtaining the prescriptions they needed by conventional means to make themselves vast financial rewards.

What Viagra can provide is a reduction of anxiety about whether an erection can be attained and can create a situation for men where intercourse actually is another option in lovemaking (where it may not have been readily available previously). However, we want to stress here, that for healthy relationships, the act of intercourse is best used when it feels most appropriate, but please, not as the goal of lovemaking. We still believe that the goal of lovemaking should be the conveyance between the partners of their love, caring and nurturing of each other. In this regard, we see the potential of Viagra as a valuable “tool.”

Another area where Viagra can make a valuable contribution is in the reduction of “condom anxiety” on the part of men. Many men are reluctant to use condoms because of fears of loss of sensitivity and/or failure to attain or maintain an erection. The increased sensitivity caused by Viagra could go a long way towards encouraging a greater use of condoms and thus, safer sex practices during intercourse.

Also, trials have begun to assess the value of Viagra in increasing the blood flow and perhaps, vaginal and clitoral sensitivity in women. A couple of weeks after Gary’s experiment, Shama elected to try Viagra (also in the interest of science). “When Gary and I made love this time, I noticed a marked increase in sensitivity in my genitals which did heighten my pleasure. He also commented that I felt “wetter and juicier” than usual. I believe that for me, as well, I was able to “stay with it” for a more extended period of time.”

A Chilean mayor is to hand out free potency pills to older people in his municipality near the capital Santiago.

Mayor Gonzalo Navarette Munoz says he wants to improve their quality of life by giving them free access to Viagra.

He will give men aged 60 or over in the working-class suburb of Lo Prado the chance to get their potency pills courtesy of the taxpayer.

He says he was inspired by complaints from older patients about their poor sex lives while working as a doctor.

“This is about giving our elderly population a better quality of life,” he told Chile’s national press.

Mr Navarette says that within the next few days physicians will start dispensing the drugs at their surgeries and his office will pick up the bill.

Election sweetener?

The mayor has done some number-crunching already. He intends to hand out Viagra four times a month to every man who asks for it and passes a medical.

He has already drawn up a list of some 1,500 men who have shown interest.

It is estimated the programme will cost around $20,000 (£10,000) in the first year.

Critics have suggested this is just a ploy to get the local politician re-elected.

But Mayor Navarette insists he is performing a valuable social service which, if successful, could be rolled out across Chile.