Danger of Women Taking Viagra

Wednesday, October 14 2009

Reviewed by:  Daniel Williams, MD

Because Viagra was developed for men, not much is known about the potential side effects if women were to begin taking it. There are, however, several logical conclusions about the risks and benefits for women that we can make bases on existing knowledge. Let me explain.

In medicine, physicians make thousands of small decisions per day – many of them are cost-benefit decisions. Does this medication’s potential benefit outweigh the known risks? This is the million-dollar question. When it comes to women taking Viagra, not much is known at all about the benefits. So physicians that prescribe this medication to women are doing so outside of the approval of the FDA.

The side effects of Viagra have been described for men and it is very possible that women might experience different symptoms and unwanted effects. It would be expected that many of the side effects would be the same for both sexes, such as runny nose, stuffy nose, mild headache, upset stomach, diarrhea, facial flushing (reddening of the face), blurry vision, and a temporary blue-tint or haze in vision. Rare, transient blindness and deafness have also been reported.

More serious side effects occur when Viagra is taken in combination with certain other cardiovascular medications such as beta-blockers and nitrates. The blood pressure can drop precipitously and be very difficult to regain, even under ideal conditions.

An indirect danger to women taking Viagra is that no physician expects women to be taking Viagra. The point here is that no Emergency Physician would suspect that an unconscious, female heart attack victim has taken Viagra. Because nitrates and beta-blockers are given for myocardial infarctions, there is potential for a deadly medication interaction.

In summary, there appears to be all risk and no validated benefit for women taking Viagra. It is an area of current and future study so let’s revisit this question in a few years.

About the author

Dr. Daniel Williams, MD, is part of the AccessRx.com medical writing and editing team. Dr. Williams has been on advancing multimedia healthcare education and developing medical education and career web sites.