Go blind with Viagra

One of the most frequent causes of sudden vision loss in older people is diabetes and cardiovascular disease, which in turn lay in the basis of impotence.

According to request of the Public Citizen (National Non-Profit Public Interest Organization), FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) should immediately notify doctors and patients that popular erectile medications Viagra (sildenafil), Cialis (tadalafil) and Levitra (vardenafil) may cause irreversible loss of vision.

Public Citizen notes that of all the drugs that cause non-arterial ischemic optic neuropathy (ION), the share of Viagra makes more than 19%. This information was received from the FDA database of drugs' side-effects.

It was found that the incidence of ION per million prescriptions was 18 times higher for patients taking Viagra and 25 times higher for ones taking Cialis compared to patients taking Lipitor, a drug used by patients with high risk of cardiovascular disease. Many cases indicate that the loss of vision was developed in close connection with the administration of these erectile dysfunction medications. Several reports confirm that patients with temporary loss of vision had a recurrence of loss of vision after re-taking the drugs. Despite this, FDA approving those drugs, said it is not possible to determine which of these processes are directly related to the use of PDE5-inhibitors (phosphodiesterase type 5), thereby implying that these drugs cannot cause the loss of vision.

In addition to 50 cases of ION reported to the FDA, another 60 cases of blindness were caused in patients who were taking Viagra, Cialis, or Levitra. According to others, the true number of cases is relatively small. During 1998-2004, 48 cases of vision loss in people taking Viagra were reported while Public Citizen found 50 more cases. During this period, 89 million prescriptions were issued, among which 83.8 million for Viagra.

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