ED Medications Linked to Hearing Loss

Phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors (PDE-5i) is one of the ingredients in popular erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra, Cialis, and Levitra . It enables better blood flow in certain types of blood vessels. One of these blood vessels is in the penis, with better blood flow to the penis, erections are easier achieved.

In some cases, this increased blood flow helps in other areas of the body. This drug initially being studied and developed for the treatment of pulmonary high blood pressure, is being studied in several other fields as well. One of those studies was actually done on a pregnant English woman; she was given doses of Viagra to help increase blood flow to the uterus helping achieve a full term for the unborn child.

However, not all these types of blood vessels are benefitting from PDE-5i, in fact the use of these erectile dysfunction medicines are causing hearing loss of various degrees in men. It would seem the sensitive blood vessels in the ear are not taking well to the increased blood flow.

Men Suddenly Suffered Hearing Loss
These findings first reported in 2007, of men suddenly suffered hearing loss while using these drugs, to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prompted them to force the manufacturers of the erectile dysfunction medicines to prominently display warnings about hearing loss on the warning labels of these medicines.

The University of Alabama at the Birmingham School of Public Health is encouraging a more stringent warning with the use of these drugs. Dr. Gerald is asking that further information should be made more readily available or actually included on the warnings. He thinks that they should be warning about the actual symptoms in detail, and that professional medical help should be sought out if these symptoms become apparent, which may prevent permanent damage.

He feels there is not enough of a warning available to the end user. Although his studies are limited at this time, he feels that men who use these drugs are at twice the risk of hearing loss than the average man not using these ED drugs.