“Hef has always said that he would rather be deaf and still be able to have sex. Strange”, said Hugh Hefner’s widow, Crystal Hefner, in an interview she gave to the Daily Mail about her life with Founder of Playboy magazine who died in 2017 at the age of 91.
According to English media reports, the use of sildenafil, commonly known as Viagra, an erectile dysfunction drug, caused Hefner severe deafness. WhatIs it so? How might a drug affect our ability to hear?
There are about a dozen drugs. known as protein phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE-5) inhibitorsassociated with sudden hearing loss. The most common are Viagra, Cialis and Levitra. Indeed, some researchers They called this phenomenonviagra deafness“.
In an investigation carried out Ear, Nose and Throat Unit at Charing Cross Hospital, UKHearing loss caused by this drug has been shown to usually occur in only one ear and within one day of taking one of these drugs. In about a third of cases, hearing loss is temporary.
One of the first alarms was a report published University of Cambridge in 2007about the case of a man who suddenly lost hearing in both ears after taking Viagra.. This prompted the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to monitor similar cases of sudden hearing loss in men in one or both ears.
As reported, sometimes hearing loss is accompanied noise in ears or ringing in the ears after taking one of these medicines.
Later, larger investigations found a similar link. In the study University of Alabama at Birmingham, showed that men who reported using PDE-5 inhibitor drugs were twice as likely to report hearing loss. And in 2018, an analysis of medical records from the University of Florida revealed a “small but significantly increased risk of sudden hearing loss.”
The above findings prompted the FDA to issue a new warning, adding more information to drug labels. For example, the label for Viagra patients verbatim includes the following: “sudden loss or decrease in hearing, sometimes with tinnitus and dizzinessrarely reported in people taking PDE5 inhibitors, including Viagra.”
“It is not possible to determine whether these events are directly related to PDE5 inhibitors, other diseases or drugs, other factors, or a combination of factors. If you experience these symptoms, stop taking Viagra and contact your doctor immediately.”
This class of drugs is also used to treat pulmonary hypertension, which is an increase in blood pressure in the pulmonary arteries. Viagra, Cialis and Levitra and any drugs of this class. they can also cause vision problems, headaches, and indigestion, among other things. side effects.