THE VIRILITY SOLUTION: DRUGS
Not surprisingly, the actual pain caused from injecting the drugs into the penis, as well as the mere thought of doing so, is enough to turn many men away from the procedure. In reality, the injection itself is not painful but rather it’s the injected prostaglandin medication— reacting with nerve-damaged and blood-deprived tissue—that actually triggers the pain.
Although approximately 500,000 men seek this treatment each year—which costs about $7 per shot—half reject it before the year is over. One 1990 study found that 51 percent of the group dropped out after receiving just one test shot. The average patient, however, stayed in the group for seven months before leaving it. However, urologists find that those who continue with long-term use of the injectables had overcome resistance to self-injection early on and made a smooth transition to injection therapy. Some experts believe that success rate may be linked to detailed instruction from the doctor or trained medical personnel in mastering the injection technique so that the patient feels competent and comfortable in self-administration of the drugs.
Now, there is another injectable option which uses yet a different medication. This 1996 FDA-approved prescription drug is called Caverject and is more expensive than tri-mix, at $20 to $25 for each injection. The drug comes in two strengths in a disposable, single-dose syringe that’s prefilled with the medication alprostadil, an effective erection-enhancing agent. Injected directly into the base of.the penis five minutes before a sexual encounter, the drug increases blood flow, producing an eventual erection. Although Medicare does not pay for injection therapy, some insurance plans do.
Still another “injectable” became available in 1997. MUSE, develOPED by a new California company called Vivus, employs a small, specially designed plastic plunger that is placed at the tip of the penis. Once the plunger is pressed in, a tiny, rice-size pellet of alprostadil is pushed into the urethra. There, moisture left by urine causes the pellet to dissolve, triggering an erection minutes later.
Certainly less invasive than a hypodermic injection of medication, Muse is still far from being the perfect virility solution because it creates an artificial erection in the absence of a partner’s sexual stimulus Also, many men complain of a burning pain in the penis after insertion of the drug. As with the injectable tri-mix, your doctor needs to titate the correct dosage of MUSE for you. Some men may require double or triple the standard dose, while others are so sensitive to the medication that they have fainted with the lowest test dose. I advise you not change dosages on your own at home.
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