GVASex
You’ve brought up several excellent issues regarding sexual health in people with coronary heart disease (CHD). The first and foremost is that it’s possible to keep having a healthy, active sex life even after a major heart attack. Unfortunately for some men and women, the fear of another heart attack is enough to make them celibate. And many drugs that treat heart disease such as beta-blockers and calcium-channel blockers can make your Willie wither. So what’s a person to do? Sex aids seem to be the first answer to pop up, and people have increasingly turned to drugs, legal and illicit. Poppers (also known as amyl nitrate, butyl nitrite, and sold as video head cleaner) cause a sexual “rush” due to the relaxing of blood vessels in the brain. Amyl nitrate was originally used to treat angina (chest pain from CHD) because it relaxes the blood vessels feeding the undernourished heart. But they also cause relaxation of the blood vessels in the entire body, leading to a drop in the blood pressure. People with healthy hearts make up for this drop with a harder and faster heart beat. But in folks with CHD, the heart is weak and can’t keep up. Also, some heart medications are based on similar nitrogen compounds such as nitroglycerin and will interact with poppers to cause an even bigger plummet in your blood pressure. As a result, it’s possible that using poppers could result in a stroke or even a heart attack. This problem is even worse with the use of Viagra (sildenafil), which increases the potency of poppers and certain heart medications. Bottom line is, if you have heart disease, don’t use poppers. No ifs, ands, or buts (butts are OK, though). Only use Viagra after consulting with your physician to make sure there won’t be any drug interactions. And even if you don’t have heart disease, never mix poppers with Viagra—several healthy gay men have died from this combination! With all of the black market pills available, it may be tempting to just surf the web and buy Viagra without a second thought, but at great peril. And studies have found that some men who use Viagra are more likely to acquire a sexually transmitted disease—probably because they’re so eager to show all their ‘buddies’ how potent they are. OK, so I’ve told you what you can’t do—what are some things you can do? For men, using a cock ring may help bring back the patter to your Peter. There are also pumps that put the plump back in your John Thomas, and a urologist can even prescribe special injections that keep the penis erect. And Viagra is still a viable option if used under the supervision of physician. Can an HIV positive person die from E Coli? This is a great question because it gets right to the heart of what AIDS is. As the HIV virus attacks the body, different parts of the immune system stop working. Opportunistic infections that result from the weakened defenses are what cause AIDS. Fortunately, some parts of the immune system keep working, and those parts continue to protect the body against a lot of different bacteria. And E. coli (Escherichia coli ) is one of those bacteria. So people with HIV are not any more likely to have a serious infection with E. coli than those without HIV. That said, can some types of E. coli (“pathogenic” types) can harm anyone, regardless of their HIV status. Unlike our friends in the politically conservative right-wing, these germs don’t discriminate. But the risk of getting a deadly strain of E. coli is pretty low for most people in America—you’d have better chances of seeing Jesse Helms as the grand marshal of a gay pride parade. |
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