When most people think of Viagra, they think of the ‘little blue pill’ that revitalizes a couples sex life.
When Maureen Muteesa hears the word Viagra she thinks of the little blue pill that has kept her son alive since he was three months old.
Not long after birth, Calvin Muteesa was diagnosed with pulmonary arterial hypertension, a rare condition which means his blood pressure is dangerously high.
This starves his lungs of oxygen-rich blood.
The 2-year-old struggles for breath and his heart has to work twice as hard to force blood to his lungs. Viagra relaxes his pulmonary artery, which carries blood to the lungs, and allows more blood and oxygen through.
The energetic tot is too young to understand what is wrong but does sometimes get frustrated at the limitations of the breathing tube that gives him extra oxygen 24 hours a day.
There is no cure for Calvin’s condition and in the long term his best hope is a heart-lung transplant.
For now, his best chance for survival is the liquid ‘love drug’.
Viagra was originally developed as a remedy for high blood pressure – and its use as a sex drug was only discovered by accident.
Yet the little blue pill is much more than a love drug because of the way it boosts blood flow.
Last month American researchers announced it could delay or prevent heart failure in victims of muscular dystrophy, a genetic disorder causing muscle wasting.
Other studies have found lots more potential uses…
- Heart Attacks
- Breast Cancer
- Cold Hands or Raynaud’s Syndrome
- Chrohns Disease Infertility
- Still Births
- Jet lag
- Diabetes
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