A Modern aesculapian example study , reported in the journalJAMA Ophthalmologythis week , tells the story of a man who drank a whole bottle of fluent sildenafil   – the active ingredient in those famous short blue pills , Viagra .

It did n’t end well .

The 50 - something - year - old serviceman drank a 30 - cc bottleful of liquid sildenafil , around 10 times the recommend dose . funnily enough , his symptoms chiefly affect his eyes ( although we ’re pretty sure the high-pitched Cupid’s itch also had another effect , which is n’t refer in the case study ) .

doctor treating the man at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston reported that he was suffering from “ debilitating nighttime blindness ” and extreme sensitivity to light . Most peculiarly of all , he start up to   see donut - form spots in the center of vision . His initial symptom started to clear up , however , the strange material body stay .

A series of optical tests show that the patient had a retinal disruption in both of optic . It ’s not watch glass clean what caused this , however , it might have been make by the effect of the Viagra on his center ' stemma vessels . Viagra ( or its fighting ingredient sildenafil ) works by flesh out the blood watercraft of the member causing parentage to rush in . Indeed , Viagra wasfirst developedto treat high blood pressure and angina , a chest pain consort with coronary heart disease . It ’s potential that the strong Lucy in the sky with diamonds of   sildenafil have the rakehell vessel of the man ’s eyes to dilate too quickly or too strongly , causing damage .

Unfortunately , the doctors toldLive Sciencethat the man did not return to the hospital for his be - up assignment , so it ’s unknown if or how his condition resolve .

This is not the first study to highlight how too much cavernous disfunction medication can lead to problems with eyesight . As reported in another daybook , Retinal Cases and Brief Reports ,   last year , a 31 - twelvemonth - one-time homo drank liquid Viagra directly from the feeding bottle . The high dose get him to see multicolored flashes and , just like the man in the new case study , he became extremely tender to sparkle .

Moral of the story : only take the recommended dose of any drug . Failing that , just do n’t toast a whole bottle of smooth Viagra in one .