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The third way to keep costs for erectile dysfunction drugs down is indirect, but worthwhile, and that is to do what you can to ensure you get the best possible results from your medications. Erectile dysfunction drugs work by allowing greater blood flow to the penis, and if they’re working against blood vessels that are narrowed by cholesterol plaques, or because you smoke a pack a day or don’t keep your diabetes under control, you’re not going to get the best results.

Many doctors who prescribe erectile dysfunction drugs recommend that you take steps to improve cardiovascular health, including having a healthy diet, kicking the smoking habit, keeping your weight under control, exercising regularly, and if you’re diabetic, maintaining tight blood glucose control. These steps improve your overall cardiac health, often improving erectile health at the same time, and helping drugs like Viagra work optimally.

Erectile dysfunction is a physiological issue for the vast majority of men who have it. That’s why drugs like Viagra work so well: they address the underlying issue, which is blood flow. When you do your part to improve your cardiac health, you’re also doing your part to improve your erectile health, whether or not you take prescription erectile dysfunction drugs.

Insurance coverage for Viagra and other drugs in its class is not great. When the name brand drugs go off-patent in the United States (which won’t start happening until the end of this year), it’s possible that generic competition could bring costs down enough that more insurance plan drug formularies will offer coverage. In the meantime, work with your doctor, compare prices, and do what you can to make your heart healthy, and you’ll get the absolute most out of the investment you make in erection health.

Viagra has been on the market since 1998, and has been taken by tens of millions of men of all ages, all over the world. Its safety and side effect profiles are well-known, and the medical community has plenty of experience in predicting who is most likely to experience side effects, and how to avoid or treat those side effects. For most men who take Viagra, the risks are minor compared to the benefits. If side effects occur, they’re typically negligible.

In other words, there’s a reason Viagra is a household word, and is the first thing most people think of when they think of erectile dysfunction. For the vast majority of users, Viagra works as expected. Follow your doctor’s recommendations, and you could find yourself enjoying your sex life more than you thought possible.

Some plans cover a limited supply of erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra per month, and some do not. The first thing to determine is whether your healthcare policy includes prescription drug coverage. If so, you need to search your policy documents (which you can often do online) for its drug formulary. Your insurance policy’s drug formulary is a list of prescription drugs (generic and name brand) that the insurer has identified as offering the greatest overall value.

Formularies often divide drugs into classes, or “tiers” depending on how expensive they are, and limit coverage for drugs that are costlier. If you locate your policy’s formulary online, do a page search for “Viagra” or whichever drug you’re interested in. This way you can find out whether your policy offers any coverage, and if so how many pills in a given time period, and how much of the cost they cover.

Don’t be shocked if your policy does not cover prescription erectile dysfunction drugs. Not all policies do. Those that do generally limit users to a certain number of pills per month. You can get more, if you have a prescription for more, but you’ll be paying for them out of your own pocket.

Suppose you don’t have erectile dysfunction, but have an undiagnosed heart problem. Because Viagra works by enlarging blood vessels, it can potentially cause blood pressure to drop. A sudden decrease in blood pressure, as you may know if you ever stood up too quickly, can cause you to faint.

If you take illicit substances along with recreational Viagra, you could be in for an unpredictable experience. That’s because many street drugs cause blood vessels to constrict. It may sound like Viagra would nicely cancel out this effect, but it’s less predictable than that. And if you obtain “Viagra” from sketchy sources, there’s no telling what’s actually in it.

Fake Viagra has been found to contain any number of nasty chemicals, some of which are dangerous on their own, others of which could interact badly with illicit drugs. In other words, you’re taking a big risk with your health for a benefit that might not be worth it.

As far as safety, the current consensus is that it’s safe to drink in moderation when you take Viagra. For men, “in moderation” means the equivalent of two drinks. One drink translates as

• One 12-oz. beer (with 5% alcohol)
• One 5-oz. glass of wine (with 12% alcohol)
• One 1.5-oz drink of hard liquor (with 40% alcohol, the equivalent of 80 proof)

It’s important to understand, however, that by consuming alcohol (even in moderation) with Viagra, you’re working against what the drug is trying to do. If you’ve ever been unable to perform sexually after having overindulged in alcohol, you know that alcohol interferes with your ability to have an erection.

Viagra works by allowing more blood to flow into the penis during sexual stimulation, but it’s not magic, and how well it works can be affected by how much you drink. The safest thing in terms of sexual performance would be to abstain from alcohol while drinking Viagra. Otherwise, be sure that you drink in moderation, or you take all sorts of risks, including the risk of the medication not working very well.

No. Viagra is going to do its thing regardless of your choice of underwear. Therefore, you can wear whatever you want and be confident that it’s not affecting your ability to have erections and enjoy sexual activity.

There are plenty of myths surrounding sexual and erectile functioning, and while there’s a grain of truth in some of them, many are simply myths.

Tight underwear, over time, can result in lower sperm counts, but it doesn’t affect your ability to have erections. Therefore, if you experience erection problems, don’t blame your underwear, because the problem lies elsewhere.

Doctors know far more about erection health than ever before. In the years before discovery of Viagra, many doctors thought of erectile dysfunction as primarily a psychological problem, or simply “part of getting old.” But the men who first took the drug that would become Viagra, and who reported that while it didn’t help with their heart problems (angina in particular), it did help them have great erections, helped put medical science on the right path. For most men, erection problems are circulatory problems, and anything you do to improve circulation will ultimately affect erections as well. Tight underwear, while it can cause problems with sperm count, is not to blame for erectile dysfunction.