About Viagra.

Viagra is a medicine used to treat erection difficulties, known as erectile dysfunction (ED). Since it first became available in 1998, Viagra has helped more than 35 million men around the world improve their sex lives.8 Amazingly, approximately 6 tablets are dispensed every second worldwide. No other oral therapy for ED has been studied as much or has the same amount of real-world experience as Viagra since its launch.8

Viagra comes in three tablet strengths, 25mg, 50mg, and 100mg. The most commonly used strength in New Zealand is the 100mg.9 Viagra can be used once a day.10

Packaging

How does Viagra work?

Viagra is a medicine that treats the physical ED problem by increasing blood flow where you need it. With Viagra, you must be sexually excited to get an erection.10

Here’s what usually happens when a man is sexually aroused:

  • The arteries in the penis relax and widen (this allows more blood to flow into the penis).
  • The increased blood flow causes the penis to become hard and erect.
  • The veins that normally carry blood away from the penis get compressed (this restricts the blood flow out of the penis).
  • More blood begins flowing in and less flows out, making the penis larger; this causes an erection.

For men with erection problems the nerves or blood vessels that play a part in this process may not work properly – Viagra helps to re-establish this process of improved blood flow to the penis.

Most men on Viagra achieve Grade 4 erections (penis is completely hard and fully rigid) regardless of their erection grade prior to treatment.11 ♂

Another aspect of treatment with Viagra is the predictable and rapid response men get from the medication. Studies have shown that for some men it begins working as early as 14 minutes and for most men within 30 minutes. Viagra works for at least 4 hours so you can have sex within a natural time frame.10,12

♂ From a 6 week randomised (n=307 men), double blind placebo controlled trail of flexible dose sildenafil with a six week open label extension. In the open label extension 61% of patients who switched from placebo to Viagra and 67% of patients who initially started on Viagra achieved a Grade 4 erection.11