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Men Are Experiencing Days of Weird Vision After Taking Erectile Disfunction Drugs
Doctors are finding yet more men with strange episodes of vision problems after taking the erectile dysfunction drug sildenafil citrate, better known by the brand name Viagra. A new case study this week from Turkey details 17 men who took sildenafil and developed light sensitivity, blurred eyesight, and even blue-tinted vision—symptoms that were thankfully only temporary and likely very rare.
The report, published Friday in Frontiers in Neurology, is a review of the cases of 17 men who had visited a specialty eye clinic at the Dünyagöz Adana hospital in Turkey. The men, who visited between August 2017 and March 2019, had all taken sildenafil for the first time. Almost immediately, they experienced various visual disturbances and other symptoms that lasted up to one or two days before they sought care at the clinic.
The list of symptoms ranged from headaches and heartburn to blurry vision and cyanopsia, otherwise known as seeing the world in blue. Those with blue-o-vision also had red-green colorblindness, such that anything red or green just looked brownish. Half of them had light sensitivity, with one case characterized as “very severe.”
Sildenafil is known to sometimes cause vision problems, including blue-tinted vision, but the symptoms usually last only a few hours, not days. Still, the doctors advised the patients that their eye ills would most likely go away without any intervention. And sure enough, by the time of a followup visit three weeks later, all the patients had recovered fully.
This isn’t the first time that people taking sildenafil have been reported to have startling eye problems. A 2018 case study from New York last year, for instance, detailed a man who took a lot of sildenafil and ended up with permanently red-tinted vision. The new report also references another case of a man taking sildenafil and other related drugs to prepare for the removal of his prostate, who also experienced temporary colorblindness.
Still, these incidents seem to be incredibly rare, and there are probably some extenuating circumstances. For one, the patients in the report had all taken the maximum recommended dose of sildenafil. In the New York man’s case, he likely took much more than recommended, having chugged down a liquid version bought online. Like the New York case, the 17 men in the new report all took the drug without a prescription.
We also know that sildenafil and other similar drugs work by affecting blood circulation, which accounts for the visual side effects they can sometimes cause. But in these men, their genetics might make them worse at breaking down sildenafil, leaving it in their system for longer than is safe; they might also have mutations that make their eyes more vulnerable to the particular way sildenafil affects the body, the doctors say.
“Although these drugs, when used under the
control of physicians and at the recommended doses, provide very
important sexual and mental support, uncontrolled and inappropriate
doses should not be used or repeated,” said study author and eye doctor
Cüneyt Karaarslan in a statement released by the journal’s publishers.
So while these cases might be scary, there’s probably no need to worry for anyone who’s already been taking sildenafil without any trouble. At the very least, though, you might want to avoid gulping down a large dose of any erectile dysfunction drug, especially without a doctor’s supervision.
Article via Gizmodo
CDC Says It’s Concerned About Polio-Like ‘Mystery Illness’ That’s Paralyzing Kids
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week issued a warning about a disease known as acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), an illness it says it knows very little about but can cause arm or leg weakness and paralysis, particularly in children. According to a Tuesday press briefing, there have been 62 confirmed cases across 22 states in 2018.
AFM is an extremely rare but serious disease that affects the nervous system and results in polio-like symptoms, though the CDC says that all confirmed cases of AFM have tested negative for poliovirus. One death of a child diagnosed with AFM occurred in 2017.
“While we know that these can cause AFM, we have not been able to find a cause for the majority of these AFM cases,” Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during the media teleconference. “The reason why we don’t know about AFM—and I am frustrated that despite all of our efforts we haven’t been able to identify the cause of this mystery illness—we continue to investigate to better understand the clinical picture of AFM cases, risk factors and possible causes of the increase in cases.”
“Despite extensive laboratory testing, we have not determined what pathogen or immune response caused the arm or leg weakness and paralysis in most patients,” Messonnier added.
Messonnier said that the CDC has neither a clear idea of who might be at higher risk of developing the disease nor why. Additionally, it doesn’t know what long-term effects of the illness could look like. Ninety percent of children diagnosed with AFM are under 18, with the average age of children in confirmed cases being about 4.
The CDC began tracking the illness in 2014 and has seen a spike in reports in August and September every 2 years, according to data on its website. It has received 127 reports of patients under investigation (PUIs) for AFM this year, though it notes that figure includes the 62 confirmed cases. The CDC received reports of 33 confirmed cases of AFM across 16 states in 2017, down from 149 confirmed cases in 39 states in 2016. In total, there have been 386 confirmed cases since 2014.
Despite the recent spike in reported cases of AFM, Messonnier underscored that the disease is “incredibly rare” and has been diagnosed annually at a rate of less than one in a million since 2014.
“Parents need to know that AFM is very rare, even with the increase in cases that we are seeing now,” Messonnier said. “We recommend seeking medical care right away if you or your child develop sudden weakness of the arms or legs. As we work to better understand what is causing AFM, parents can help protect their children from serious diseases by following prevention steps like washing their hands, staying up to date on recommended immunizations and using insect repellent.”
Article via Gizmodo