According to the official Viagra website, men should not take the little blue pill more than once a day. So that’s exactly what our tester did: he took Viagra no more than once a day, but only for two consecutive weeks.
Our tester: « Now I realize that it may seem a bit excessive to ingest the world’s most widely used erectile dysfunction pill, as if it were ibuprofen, every day, but I was determined to figure out what it was like. Would I become a sex god? Would my mood lift? Would I hallucinate? Would the downward flow of blood affect my brain? Well, there was only one way to find out.
Some relevant background: I’m 40 and, thankfully, still very sexually active, and I’ve been experimenting with Viagra for many years (albeit modestly). But for this article, I was definitely entering uncharted waters. Nervous? A bit. Horny? Absolutely. More than anything, I was curious about what it would be like to travel the world on a full sexual charge. Here’s what I learned.
1 – « A little » can go a long way
Viagra is available in three dosages: 25 mg, 50 mg or 100 mg. In the past, I’ve found that 25 mg always does the trick just fine. However, my journey begins with 100 mg, which I have chosen to cut into three.
Over the course of my 14-day experiment, there were a few evenings where sex was planned and I had one too many drinks. As I expected, the dose certainly did the trick. In fact, I found myself very prone to sudden, rock-hard erections for most of the next day. The reason? Viagra doesn’t stop working after four hours. On the contrary, its effectiveness drops by 50%. Another four hours and it drops another 50%.
Even at my usual dose of 25 mg, I still woke up every morning with enough Viagra in my system to make the penis so hard that nothing could bend it.
2 – Viagra could be a placebo (very effective)
During the two weeks I spent taking Viagra, I couldn’t help but notice that my erections seemed harder, fuller and more stable during an evening of sex. However, according to Johns Hopkins urologist Dr. Arthur Burnett, I may be wrong. Burnett says that guys like me who don’t have physical problems achieving and maintaining an erection are wasting their money using Viagra recreationally.
« If erections are truly intact, Viagra doesn’t make a better erection, » he says. Could this mean that a mental rather than a physical problem was making my natural erections less impressive than the chemically assisted ones.
3 – Yes. Most of the time, erectile dysfunction is in your head.
Stress, depression, relationship problems, low self-esteem and anxiety about sexual performance often take their toll on erections. These factors are certainly known to impair the vigor of our penis. Viagra can help in these cases.
A higher percentage of men suffer from sexual anxiety and sexual problems related to erectile quality. As a result, there are more men who have to deal with situational erectile dysfunction and take Viagra. The effect for these men is often a firmer, more consistent and more reliable erection.
4 – Side effects are numerous and can be serious
When I took Viagra, I experienced hot flushes: a sensation of heat in my cheeks and ears, accompanied by noticeable redness. The dilated blood vessels also had another side effect: sudden, severe nasal congestion that prevented me from breathing through my nose or smelling my partner – things I really enjoy doing when I make love. (To mitigate this, I learned to use a nasal spray containing oxymetazoline hydrochloride when I took my pill).
In 2015, a meta-analysis of 150 trials determined that, while Viagra is the most effective of the various erectile dysfunction drugs on the market, it also has the highest incidence of side effects – headache, stomach ache, loss of vision, blue eyesight, backache, muscle pain, nausea and dizziness, to name but a few. Another rarer side effect can be a rock-hard erection that doesn’t subside. The medical name for a perma-rigidy is called priapism. While priapism may sound appealing to a guy interested in having better sex, it’s important to know that an erection that refuses to subside can cause permanent damage, including amputation.
5 – What you eat is of the utmost importance
I realized that the quality and quantity I ate had an effect on how quickly the Viagra went to work. On an empty stomach, I felt hot and had an erection in less than twenty minutes. If, however, I’d eaten a burger and fries, it was more like forty. This is confirmed by the company’s website, which states that a fatty meal can prolong the treatment time of Viagra.
6 – You’ll bounce back in no time
I’ve also noticed a few other benefits from taking so much Viagra, including a shorter refraction time (meaning: the time elapsed between ejaculation and the possibility of having sex again). Some have even used it to enable faster recovery of erectile capacity after ejaculation.
7 – Beware: you can last « forever
Not having control over my orgasm has rarely been a personal problem. That said, I noticed that during this experience, I really had to make an effort to reach orgasm, despite a throbbing, long-lasting erection that seemed very beneficial to both my partner and me.
This phenomenon was studied in 2005 when researchers investigated whether Viagra also helped premature ejaculation. The study concluded that Viagra « increased self-confidence, perceived ejaculation control and overall sexual satisfaction, and reduced the refractive time to achieve a second erection after ejaculation in men with PE ». Another 2007 study showed just one perception and proved that Viagra can be both effective and safe in the treatment of PE.
8 – Not everyone enjoys marathon sex sessions
With great power comes great responsibility. And if you have a penis like a crowbar, increased ejaculation control, a mind less distracted by performance anxiety – and the refraction time of a fifteen-year-old – you run the risk of your partner wanting or needing to stop before you do.
« I want you to come now », is basically a nice way of saying: « That’s enough, I’ve been bored/ pissed off/ exhausted/ too busy to do it all day ».
In my experience, this phrase has been said to me many times. The length of time people enjoy sex is incredibly varied, but according to a 2008 study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, sexologists defined sex lasting 1-2 minutes as « too short », 3-7 minutes « adequate », 7-13 minutes deemed « desirable » and 10-30 minutes « too long ». In my case, the more time passed, the sooner these requests for cessation and abandonment arrived. And here are some other warning signs that your partner may not be enjoying sex as much as you are.
9 – You want to do too much and it will be bad for you
Considering what Viagra, taken recreationally, can do – and did for me during this very amusing two-week experiment – it would be understandable if you thought increasing the dose meant increasing the good times. But beware: unless you’re really suffering from erectile dysfunction, you probably don’t need it. And if you’re taking it because you drink too much, well, I’d drink less instead of trying to fight it with the pill.
And for what it’s worth: the Internet is full of testimonials from men who drank too much of it with Viagra and ended up having heart attacks, in the case of a 66-year-old farmer in Colombia, requiring emergency surgery on a penis that had become gangrenous following a Viagra overdose. Brrrrr.
The biggest, hardest, proudest erection in the world isn’t worth the risk.
