Viagra was not originally made for what it's mostly known for these days. Its effects on the male reproductive organ were a positive side effect.
this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2026
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Was here to say this. When ever they find out some unexpected benefit of a drug, they often invent a disorder and then offer up the treatment.
Things like erectile dysfunction are not really a disorder. It's normal for men to find it more difficult to get and maintain an erection as they exit their 20s. And it will keep reducing.
Imagine if 50 year old men still walked around like 15 year old boys. My gawd. The world couldn't survive.
Other drugs with invented dysfunctions.
Mail pattern baldness. Again natural and normal for men.
Eye lash thickness. Yes there is a prescription drug to treat your thin eye lashes.
There is a prescription sex drug for women. And here is the best part. It just makes women relaxed and sleepy. Yeah .. so think about that.
Our society is fucked.
Natural changes as part of development being labeled as things that need treated.
Treat those wrinkles.
Treat that hair loss.
Treat those thin eye lashes
Treat that flat ass syndrome
Because then it’s just an effect and the medication is sold as treating weight loss or memory or whatever
Sometimes they do. Viagra was originally a heart medication that they figured out did something else.
Botox was for eye muscle disorders, now it's used cosmetically, for migraines, and a bunch of other diseases.
Apparently 20% of drugs are prescribed off-label. It's kind of an extension of "what do you call alternative medicine that works?"
Wait, migraines? Are you able to give me (what would technically legally be non-medical) information on that? Migraines run in my family and every family that comes into contact with my little brother. Aside from the botulism poisoning method, how does that work?
Viagra will kill the shit out of you if you have a heart attack and the emergency room gives you nitroglycerin.
Well. Maybe you don't die, but it won't have the intended effect.
Viagra also alleviates PMS. Not approved for it, even though it's prescribed for recreation to men.
I mean a fair amount of my friends had endometriosis (not sure if that's a geographic oddity or something worse) and now I'm curious if that could have (whole lot of hysterectomies in the gang) helped.
Maybe because then the drug manufacturers will have marketed it as a miracle drug and charge your soul for it.
Because they spin that off into separate drugs.
Because people either don't care about positive side effects, or it becomes an off-label/alternate use for the medication.
"May make you feel better" isn't the kind of side-effect that someone would typically pay very much attention to, for example, unless it was meant for them to be aware of the possibility whilst their body adjusted to the new medication, and it would go back to normal after.
So the ones with real "feel good" side effects are the ones that people have addiction problems with, and instead of indirectly giving pleasure, they give it directly. Some people enjoy while they use them and move on with life, others become obsessed with that pleasure and throw everything else away in the pusuit of it.
Oh, there are quite some. Just from the top of my heaf: Viagra originally was just a heart medication. Metformin, a diabetes 2 medication, is strongly suspected of having other positive side effects, like generally prolonging life. There recently was an article about a new Alzheimer medication which would be quick to the market as such because it is already a certified medication against something else.
Cannabis is fantastic for some specific gut problems. Also some types of pain. Also nausea.
My pain doc was delighted when she found out I had all three. She said "go get stoned, never come back"
But gives you a drug addiction...
Finasteride was designed to treat prostate cancer but it helps with male pattern baldness.
I lost a bit of weight when I went on ADHD meds
Speed is fucking awesome, it makes me feel like a productive citizen.
Why are all these dishes in the sink ? That's crazy! Let me clean this counter up ,it'll only take 11 minutes then Im going to pay all my bills on time. Wow that was easy , now I won't worry about all that crap and I'll probably sleep like a baby tonight. I'm going to read a book for a little while then go to sleep
And here i am rawdogging the slog like a chump.
I think part of it is also that occasional positive side effects are not something drug companies can advertise. They're legally obligated to talk about the negative ones.
But are they legally not allowed to talk about positive side effects?
Nope, just "tar" like stool and heart palpitations
They want to keep those under wraps so that they can repackage the drug, label it specifically for those effects, and mark it up another 5000%.
Entropy. There's only a few ways for things to go right and countless ways for things to go wrong. Therefore, the probability of an undesirable outcome is far higher than any desirable outcome.
Wasn't that the case with Ozempic? It was meant for diabetes patients first but then they noted the effect in reduced hunger and many other positive improvements which its why it has become as popular as it has
Same with Viagra. It's actually a heart medication. It just happened to give guys boners.
Technically doesn't give you a boner but inhibits the hormone that makes it harder to get a boner (e.g during your refractory period)
To get a boner you still need stimulation, physical or mental.
Why do I know this? My last relationship was very abusive and stressful. Even boner pills didn't help much. When I got out of it, things started working again. The pills work best when you actually want to have sex with your partner, but still have issues.
It's cuz they have so much love in their hearts now.
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I dont like the thought that everything tastes like choclate cake after taking a pill. It could lead to eating something moldy or bad without noticing
Point of order can we choose a pill that is roquefort and not chocolate cake? Some of us have a little thing called the cheese sweats
You detect moldiness with mouth?
As a last resort, yes. What do you eat your cheese with?
Uhh yes?!
Because when they do it generally becomes one of the advertised effects. Lots of drugs were originally for something else but were later found to be useful for other things.
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