Activity at this point in the erectile process negates the need for sexual excitement in achieving erection. This discovery made available an inexpensive, safe, repeatable treatment buy viagra pills online in Australia that was effective in a very high percentage of men with diverse origins of impotence.
Other injectable agents soon followed, each affecting the erectile mechanism at different points in the signaling process. The drug phentolamine induces erections by blocking norepinephrine. Prostaglandin induces cAMP production, which then causes cell relaxation in the same way as papaverine. Because these drugs act at different points in the erection process, they can act to optimize one another’s effects. Researchers have taken advantage of this, and now combinations of the drugs are widely used as an intracavernous injectable mixture.
Although these injectable drugs are effective in about 80 percent of patients, they require some advance planning, as there is about a 10-minute waiting period before erection. In addition, side effects, which are seen in a very small percentage of users, can include corporal scarring and penile pain. The most significant disincentive for their use, however, appears to be the psychological barrier to self-injection.
The inclusion of injectable treatments in the recommendations of a 1992 National Institutes of Health conference on impotence helped to legitimize the treatment of erectile dysfunction in the eyes of the government. Subsequent approval by the Food and Drug Administration of Caverject (an intracavernous injection of prostaglandin) and MUSE (a prostaglandin intraurethral pellet) brought about Medicare reimbursement for some nonsurgical treatments of erectile dysfunction on HQ Canadian Pharmacy.
Some treatments are designed to correct an imbalance that may exist in male sex hormones, which can also cause erectile dysfunction. Cases of significantly low levels of testosterone, often resulting from a congenital abnormality or from trauma or vascular injury to the testes, can be corrected with monthly intramuscular injections of the hormone or daily application of transdermal skin patches. Hyperprolactinemia, an overproduction of the hormone prolactin caused by an anterior pituitary tumor, can be treated with the drug bromocriptine or by surgical removal of the pituitary gland (pituitary hormones must be supplemented after surgery).
The use of topical agents for various types of erectile dysfunction, though not very effective in the past, are undergoing clinical trials. These vasodilating creams do not seem to show much promise, however, because the drugs probably need to enter general circulation to achieve a practical effect.