Not only are there those who have put their noble parts in soy sauce with the intention of savoring it or those who have tried to cure the lack of taste and smell after having passed COVID-19 with roasted orange and brown sugar: now several TikTok users have used viagra, a drug to treat erectile dysfunction, dissolved in water to play practical jokes on his classmates, as a challenge on this and other social networks.
It is a dangerous ‘challenge’ that can take its toll on the cardiac health of the victims. In fact, this drug is not even allowed to be sold without a prescription. Its use is recommended in patients with erectile dysfunction of vascular origin (the most frequent) that all men suffer with age.
“It is not possible to dispense sildenafil, the pharmaceutical principle of viagra, without a prescription; like the rest of the products for erectile dysfunction, such as tadalafil or vardenafil”, Carlos Balmori, urologist at LYX Institute of Urology, explains to Maldita.es. In fact, the products that could be obtained over the internet without a prescription “are either illegal or fraudulent.”
Although, as Balmori states, the safety margin of these products is wide (that is why their indications with the corresponding patient study are increasingly broad), as with any other medication, their use “is not exempt from side effects” : “The mechanism of action of the drug improves vascular dilation of blood vessels, more specifically of the penis, although it can affect other blood vessels, producing hypotension.”
According to the Spanish Heart Foundation, patients who have had cardiovascular problems can take drugs for erectile dysfunction such as sindenafil (Viagra R), tadalafil (Cialis) or vardenafil (Levitra), as long as they do not use medication that is contraindicated (and always with a prescription).
Also, going back to the videos that bring us here today, it is possible that, being a ‘prank’ environment, the ‘pranksters’ neglect the doses used, exceeding those recommended. One of the reasons why this could happen, according to Balmori, is that, if the drug is not legally purchased, possibly “the doses they have are not controllable.”
On the other hand, the product is normally intended to be ingested in the form of a tablet with a coating that allows a slow and progressive release, but “if we break its coverage and its absorption in the body is abrupt, this could have harmful consequences,” he points out. the expert.
In relation to the videos that we mentioned, the pharmacist Guillermo Martín (@Farmaenfurecida) has explained through a video that he has shared on different social networks that it is not the first time that someone has taken one of these pills on their own “to try last longer in bed” and what ends is “in bed, but from the hospital”: “That is why we always ask for a prescription in pharmacies”.
In addition, it adds that giving medication to a person without their consent is considered intoxication. “So, you could go from the hospital bed to the jail bed,” she concludes.
