Vision Problems with Erectile Dysfunction Drugs
The FDA has approved updated labeling for three oral medications used to treat erectile dysfunction to reflect a small number of postmarketing reports of sudden vision loss attributed to non-arteritic ischemic optic neuropathy (naion). In patients with naion, blood flow to the optic nerve is blocked.
The FDA advises patients to stop taking tadalafil drug (Cialis generic, Lilly/Icos), generic vardenafil (Levitra tablet, Bayer/GlaxoSmith-Kline), and sildenafil drug (Generic Viagra, Pfizer) right away if they experience sudden or decreased vision loss in one or both eyes.
Patients taking or considering taking these products should inform their doctors if they have ever had severe loss of vision, which might reflect a prior episode of naion. Naion tends to recur in such patients.
Those at highest risk for the vision loss were patients older than age 50 who had diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol levels. It is not clear whether the three medications caused the vision loss or whether the vision loss was related to the other health problems cited.
