Every commericial for these products that I’ve seen clearly warns about priapism.
I’m skeptical, because I suspect a convenient marketing ploy. It would suggest that the product really really works. After all who ever heard of getting priapism from oysters.
Can anyone point to an unbiased cite for this claim.
Loving a challenge, I pulled up Pfizer’s monograph for vitamin V, and ran a word search for “priapism.” The only result was a cover-your-ass note about how, if it occurs, it should be treated immediatley because penile tissue damage can result.
The card for Viagra in my SFI set lists the following adverse effects; Headache (16%), flushing (10%), dyspepsia (7%), nasal congestion (4%) urinary tract infection (3%), abnormal vision (3%), diarrhea (3%) dizziness (2%), rash (2%). Nothing about priapism
in “Contraindications/Precautions” Viagra is not recommended for people with predispositions to priapism (such as guys with sickle-cell anemeia: the sickles hook together and don’t flow out of the penis. This happened to a guy at my work - we had to reassign him to a solitary workstation where the females wouldn’t be offended). But this isn’t the same as the drug causing priapism.
This is a joke, right? What do oysters have to do with it?
It’s all because of this guy.
Tadalafil is Cialis, which is the one - the only one - to use the four-hour erection warning. No cases have ever been associated with viagra. It’s just that viagra has become the default generic term for such drugs.
Cialis works by drawing blood into the penis, and one type of priapism (the ischemic kind referred to above) is the inability for the blood to flow out again. A long erection could indeed cause damage. One person did have this problem, and the manufacturer, pardon the expression, seized upon it. Essentially, they made lemonade out of a guy’s lemon. 
P.S. Oysters are the most famous mythical aphrodisiac.
Right. I just don’t see why a reference to a mythical aphrodisiac sheds any light on the question posed in the OP.
Right. I just don’t see why a reference to a mythical aphrodisiac sheds any light on the question posed in the OP.
It was a joke - if you were choosing between two treatments, oysters and Viagra, you’d choose the one that had the side effect of a 4 hour erection, obviously it works if it can do that, right?
There are or were many people who were somewhat ambivalent of the effects of oysters on libido. The question of placebo type effects on those who promoted oysters were often questioned. Had we had reports of priapism as a result of injesting oysters, you can bet your ass that there woould be a major oysterculture industry today.
Skepticism of all aphrodesiacs was as I remember mainstream in western culture. The drug companies pushing ED remedies blew that out of the water, especially with the gratuitous warning of an erection lasting more than four hours.
Does that satisfy your concerns? Is my reference to oysters legitimate enough ?
There are or were many people who were somewhat ambivalent about the effects of drowning on witches.
The question was questioned? Eh? The placebo effects on the oyster promoters? What?
OK. So?
The drug companies blew the skepticism out of the water by way of gratuitous warnings? Is that what you meant? Because it is pretty much what you said.
Legitimate enough for what? I merely wanted to know if you were serious with your reference to priapism and oysters. Just because a mythological treatment does not produce a particular effect is no reason to assume that an actual treatment would not produce that affect. Agreed?
I’ve had more than a few sickle cell patients in the past. They are prone to priapism (well, the male ones anyway). Anecdotally I can report that two of my sicklers reported the worst priapisms of their lives after taking viagra. One went down with being given proper drugs and ice packs; the other needed surgical decompression.
Could/had they gotten priapism before, without the viagra? Yes.
Are they ever going to take viagra again? They say no.
Is it a common side-effect for viagra and other related meds? No.
Should the drug companies which make these medications be warning folks about it as a possible consequence? Yes.
That’s what I want to know. You’re the one that seems to have a problem.
Oh wait, scratch that. That’s what I wanted to know. I don’t care anymore what your problem is because I can’t help you.
One of my fellow instructors had a student in class that had a non-stop woody after taking some vitamin V.
I don’t recall the details, but the upshot was it was not fun, and was painful.
Thankyou. I must say in light of your post however that the drug companies could seriously improve the benefit of the warning if it specifically adressed sickle cell anemia . On the other hand, what I don’t know is if sickle cell anemia is an obvious known condition or that the aflicted prospective viagra user may not be aware of his condition.
In any case something isn’t quite right if I have to get the knowledge of this problem between viagra etc. and sickle cell anemia on the SDMB after they’ve being on the market for several years.
Oh, sicklers know they’ve got it.
But my larger point (which I didn’t really make) is that it does increase the risk of priapism for those who have conditions that make them prone to priapism. And not all conditions predisposing one to priapism are going to be known to the person taking the viagra. Or their doctor, for that matter.
So they go with the general warning, to alert anyone that does end up with a prolonged, uncomfortable erection, to seek help.
If they had their druthers, I’d imagine they’d rather not have to give that warning. From a marketing standpoint, I don’t think it’s helpful to tell your potential customers something along the lines of: May give you such a hardon that a doctor might have to operate on it with large needles or maybe a knife to get it to go down.
Maybe I am missing something, but why would someone who suffers from priapism be using viagra at all? I have used it twice for the opposite reason. It works as advertised (my only side reaction was a flushed face) and it seemd to make erections easier for at least 24 hours after.
Because the past priapisms often interfere with the ability to get current non-priapic erections. And a drug which promises to help in that regard may seem, to them, to be worth the risk.
Qadgop, If a person has to get surgery to deflate, are they permanently down? What are the long term effects of a surgical intervention?
Also, I’m glad that there is an official term for day-long erections. In the eighth grade, I just called it a school day.
Depends on a lot of things like why the priapism was there, how long it was there, how hypoxic the tissues got, just how serious the surgical intervention had to be, etc.
Outcomes would range from no deficit in erectile capacity after the repair all the way to the intervention wasn’t successful and the thing ended up being amputated.
To the best of my recollection, any side effect with 1% or less occurrence rate and which isn’t fatal or permanently damaging isn’t going to get listed on the package insert. For one thing, you wouldn’t be able to list all of the random effects that happened to occur (whether due to the drug or not) while taking the medication.