Viagra

Q. I often read in your column about individuals suffering lack of libido due to anti-depressant use. I assume "libido" indicates a lack of fulfillment from the sex act, since they have enough interest to write.My wife was finding our sex life less than rewarding as a result of taking the anti-depressant Zoloft. I'd heard that some women had used Viagra for relief of this situation, so we got a sample to try.It worked very well. Now that she's used the Viagra, she doesn't always need it. I thought you might find our experience interesting.

Q. I have heard there is a new medicine for people with arthritis. Please tell me the name of this drug and when it will become available.My knees are in bad shape, and I took Advil until it gave me an ulcer. Now I get by on Tylenol but would appreciate something stronger.A. Celebrex (celecoxib) is a new kind of prescription arthritis medicine that the Food and Drug Administration may approve any day now. It probably won't be more effective against arthritis pain than current medications, but it is less likely to irritate the stomach lining.

BOSTON -- The woman is sitting at the beauty parlor scanning the pages of Esquire when he pops up. Bob Dole, World War II veteran, presidential candidate, Senate leader and svelte spokesman on impotence -- no, Erectile Dysfunction -- is staring out at her. Again.Surrounding his photo is the word "Courage." Beside him is the admonition that other men go see their doctor. In the lower right hand corner is a small logo for Pfizer, maker of Viagra.This woman is a certified believer in male openness and sharing and touching and feeling.

Just one year after the anti- impotence drug Viagra burst onto pharmacy shelves, the baby blue pill that roared is being sold in 50 countries worldwide, ranging from Thailand to Chile to South Africa.How popular has it been? Before gaining government approval in Thailand, Viagra sold on the black market for about $30 per pill -- about triple the U.S. retail price. And before the Canadian government approved the drug, men there flocked across the border to fill prescriptions -- leading some to dub the honeymoon capital of the world "Viagra Falls."

WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration approved yesterday the first pill to treat impotence, which health officials estimate affects millions of men in this country.The oral medication, Viagra, which will be available only by prescription, is the first nonsurgical approach to treating sexual dysfunction. It is being described as easier and less embarrassing for men to use than currently available treatments, which must be injected or inserted into the penis.Viagra, taken by mouth, about an hour before intercourse, does not directly cause penile erections; rather, it affects the response to sexual stimulation.

Manufacturers of the experimental mail-order plane that nose-dived into Beards Creek on Saturday defend the integrity of their product and speculate that pilot error, not mechanical problems, caused the accident that killed actor William Gardner Knight.Federal investigators, tipped off by a prescription bottle found among Knight's belongings, suspect that the pilot made a fatal mistake while impaired by the side effects of Viagra, though they have not ruled out other potential causes.They sent blood and tissue samples yesterday to Federal Aviation Administration laboratories in Oklahoma City, where a test is being developed to help determine whether Knight, 56, had the impotence drug in his system.

Doctors who hailed the drug Viagra as a breakthrough for impotent men are predicting that it could have unexpected benefits for women suffering sexual difficulties.Physicians are basing their hopes on evidence that the drug works upon chemical pathways and tissues that are remarkably similar in men and women. That doesn't mean the drug will have the same dramatic benefits in women, but researchers are eager to find out.Pfizer Inc., a pharmaceutical giant that is expected to reap huge profits from sales to men, has been testing the drug for twoyears among European women who have sexual dysfunction.

RioRunner," as he calls himself, has steroids to sell. The drugs, used by athletes to bulk up muscle and lose fat, are illegal in the United States, but "Rio" is not huddled on a street corner or distributing coded notes in a gym.Instead, the dealer posted on the "Elite Fitness" Web site under the not-so-subtle title "Looking for a Steroid Source?"

Federal investigators are looking into the possibility that the pilot who crashed his experimental airplane Saturday into Edgewater's Beards Creek was impaired by side effects of taking Viagra.While they have not ruled out pilot or mechanical error in the crash that killed William Gardner Knight, 56, an actor from Delray Beach, Fla., investigators have asked the state medical examiner to run blood tests today to look for Viagra.Kathryn Creedy, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, confirmed that this is the first time the anti-impotence drug has been associated with an actual crash, although the FAA recommended recently that commercial flight crew members not fly within six hours of taking the drug.

Forget Viagra, the impotence treatment that re-energized the bedroom and the bottom line by its phenomenal sales. Some industry analysts believe a new arthritis painkiller known as COX-2 inhibitors will be the next pharmaceutical wonder."

It's a common side effect of many antidepressants: decreased sexual function. For years, doctors have known that men with the problem can get help from Viagra. Now a study confirms that the little blue pill may also help women. The research, which appears in today's Journal of the American Medical Association, found that women who took Viagra reported increased levels of sexual functioning, compared with those who took a placebo. "It worked well for this group, not quite as strong as the men, but better than any other medicine [for sexual dysfunction]

Presumably, any day now George Mitchell will release a scathing report on steroids in baseball that will either eternally restore our faith in the national pastime or shock us all into moving to Ottawa and becoming NHL fans. But there's a slight problem with this premise: As far as shock goes, baseball has successfully waited out our attention span. Steroids, human growth hormone, amphetamines, the cream, the clear, equine Viagra - it's all pushed to the very back of my mind's medicine cabinet.

The first thing that comes to mind when you watch the new Viagra commercial is: Who knew ED could be so much fun? If you haven't seen this gem yet, picture a bunch of middle-age guys with musical instruments sitting around some sort of roadside cafe. Suddenly, they launch into a snappy little ditty called -- you can't make this up -- "Viva Viagra." And it's sung to the tune of "Viva Las Vegas," the old Elvis Presley song. Yep, that sound you heard was the King pushing aside the Sara Lee wrappers and spinning in his grave.

INSIDE TODAY WHAT THEY'TRE SAYING Viva Viagra When you see the latest Viagra commercial - featuring a takeoff on Elvis' "Viva Las Vegas" - you start to wonder: Who knew ED could be so much fun? Today baltimoresun.com/cowherd other voices Rashod D. Ollison on ScreamfestToday Michael Dresser on bridge dreadsmaryland Edward Gunts on Hopkins' museumToday Sidebar hijinksThe Sidebar Tavern, 218 E. Lexington St., throws a carnival featuring thumb wrestling, Natty Boh can tossing, face painting, balloon breaking and more.

After an Air Force base in Maryland stopped ordering Viagra in 2005, Lawrence Williams spotted an opportunity. The former civilian employee at Andrews Air Force Base continued to order the drug used for erectile dysfunction on behalf of the military and resold the pills for personal profit. In Greenbelt, U.S. District Judge Deborah K. Chasanow on Monday sentenced Williams, 48, of District Heights, to six months in prison, followed by five months of electronic home monitoring and three years of supervised release for stealing at least 100 bottles of Viagra from the military.

An incendiary Viagra joke ignites the middle of the new Chris Rock comedy, I Think I Love My Wife, and burns the rest of the movie to a crisp. It highlights Rock at his scorching best, bringing right out into the open what we all think when we listen to TV commercials list the side effects of drugs for erectile dysfunction. The problem is, Rock plays a thirtysomething man who doesn't really need Viagra and spends most of the movie complaining that his wife no longer wants to make love.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Rush Limbaugh didn't go with any more Viagra jokes on his radio show yesterday, after Palm Beach County prosecutors cleared him for possessing the erectile-dysfunction pills in his psychologist's name. Prosecutors determined that Limbaugh, 55, of Palm Beach, had been prescribed the pills, but they referred the case to Miami-Dade prosecutors for review because the prescription was issued there, not in Palm Beach County. Customs agents detained Limbaugh for more than three hours June 26 at Palm Beach International Airport when he returned from the Dominican Republic and was found to have a Viagra prescription in someone else's name in his luggage.

What do Viagra and Silly Putty have in common? Both started out as something else. In 1944, Silly Putty was a failed attempt to make a synthetic rubber for soldiers' boots and airplane tires, but it found fame and fortune after someone thought to package it in plastic eggs and sell it as a toy in 1949. Viagra, also known as the "little blue pill," was developed in the early 1980s as a chest pain treatment, but it found its niche elsewhere in the 1990s. "It didn't turn out to be as effective for its original purposes as it needed to be," said Kate Robins, a spokeswoman for Viagra's creator, Pfizer Inc. "But it demonstrated potential for male erectile dysfunction, and that use for that compound is pretty well known."

BOSTON - You have to say that the drug companies asked for it. I mean really asked for it. Remember when Viagra first came on the market? The spokesman was Bob Dole, veteran, Senate leader and prostate cancer survivor, who urged other men to talk to their doctors about erectile dysfunction. The slogan was: Courage. Fast-forward through the millennium. The spokesman now is a hunky 40-something guy and a slogan that says: "Keep that spark alive." The message today is less about disease and more about delight.

LOS ANGELES - There are two groups who seem to indulge in writing memoirs: people who are too young to have lived through very much, and those who have lived so long that they've forgotten much that happened. Jamie Reidy would seem to be from the first pack. He's only 35, and his story, Hard Sell, chronicles his professional adventures for exactly five years, from age 25 to 30. But in his last two years working as a salesman for Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company, he was among 119 reps in the urology division charged with marketing a new wonder pill called Viagra.