Can You Take 2 Viagra Pills At Once?

Viagra® has a reputation as a safe and effective treatment for erectile dysfunction, and that reputation has only grown over the decades since it first entered the market.

In many ways, Viagra could be considered a miracle drug for its relative effectiveness and safety. But that reputation doesn’t mean you should disregard safety information and medical recommendations. Despite that, some people may falsely assume that Viagra is safe enough to mishandle by taking it multiple times in a day. 

We get it: as an ED medication, Viagra isn’t perfect. The pill gives you one reliable session a day, but after that, you’re stuck waiting for a clock to run out. 

If this sounds familiar, you're probably here wondering a simple question: can I take two Viagra pills on the same day, or at the same time.

Can you take two Viagra pills at once? Well, not really, no. There are a few instances in which it might be okay, but these are rare exceptions to the rules you should be following. 

Before we explore why taking two pills is generally a bad idea, let’s first explore what Viagra is, and how it works.

Erections and Erectile Dysfunction

The best place to start with understanding this Viagra question is probably with the central character in the story: your penis, and how it works. 

You get an erection when blood flow to the penis increases, and the blood becomes trapped in the corpora cavernosa: two cavernous chambers meant for balloon-like inflating. Arousal sends signals from your brain to the blood vessels in your penis to start the process, which results in your member becoming engorged, giving you an erection. 

Erectile dysfunction is any condition that interrupts the process of getting hard, especially in a way that prohibits you from engaging in sexual intercourse. A lot of factors can be at play in giving you erectile dysfunction: heart disease, high blood pressure, anxiety, drug use, high cholesterol, obesity, sexual performance anxiety and even diabetes.

The NIH defines erectile dysfunction as a “condition in which you are unable to get or keep an erection firm enough for satisfactory sexual intercourse.” ED is a common condition — the National Institutes of Health estimates 30 million men experience some degree of ED nationwide. 

What Is Viagra?

Viagra is the original modern ED medication. The generic version of Viagra (sildenafil) is a phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) inhibitor — a drug that sustains dilation and blood flow in the penis, resulting in firmer, complete erections. 

Viagra is an in-the-moment kind of medication. While competitor Cialis® (tadalafil) can work for a day or more, Viagra is best taken within 30 minutes of intimacy, according to the National Library of Medicine.

About 70 percent of men respond well to PDE5 inhibitors, but it’s largely dependent on the source of your problem. Men with “no identifiable organic cause” generally fare the best, with a 90 percent success rate.

Double The Pills, Double The Risk

Given how this medication works, it might sound like taking a double dose might provide a double benefit. Unfortunately, that’s one of many dangerous logical fallacies when it comes to ED medications: taking two pills isn’t going to make your erection twice as hard, or twice as large — it’s just going to cause your risk of adverse effects to double.

According to the FDA, Viagra is prescribed in certain dosages based on a healthcare professional’s expert medical opinion of what you need to function, and there are generally three doses you’ll see on market: 25mg, 50mg, and 100mg.

When you get going at a double dose, you increase your risk of taking too much Viagra, and therefore, of experiencing adverse effects — and the potential severity. Especially if you’re looking to make two 100mg’s into one 200mg Viagra.

Common side effects for sildenafil include a variety of things with a range of severity, but highlights include headaches, dizziness, rashes, and sudden drops in blood pressure. While this might sound like a benefit if you have high blood pressure, it’s actually not — these drops can cause death, especially when sildenafil is mixed with other blood pressure medications.

Here’s another side effect that you don’t want: prolonged erections that last for several hours. Also called “priapism,” prolonged erections are a medical condition that can permanently damage your penis, which is definitely not the kind of change you want this drug to bring to your sex life. In any case, if you ever experience a painful erection lasting more than a few hours, you should see a doctor immediately.

Some ED sufferers might wrongly believe that taking a double dose might override arousal issues, as well. That’s not true. PDE-5 inhibitors merely create the proper conditions for an erection, but arousal still has to happen for you to get hard, meaning that if you’re suffering from depression or another psychological issue preventing arousal, this pill isn’t going to fix that — even if you take two. 

When You Can Take Viagra More Than Once

Is there ever an instance when taking two pills is a good idea? 

There are some limited contexts in which you could take two Viagra pills at once to improve your sexual activity,, though. For instance, if you’re initially prescribed a low dose (25 mg) and then your healthcare professional increases your prescription to 50 mg, you could take two pills at once, if the healthcare professional says it’s okay. 

But in that case, they should not be spaced out throughout the day — even the Viagra website specifically warns against taking Viagra more than once a day. 

This is a very limited context in which two pills could ever be okay — anything outside of that (and particularly without a doctor’s recommendation) is dangerous.

Unfortunately, this does mean that a morning session and evening session are mutually exclusive while using Viagra. If this is a major concern because you’re just having sexual intercourse all the damn time, well, congratulations. You might want to talk to your healthcare professional about tadalafil (Cialis), which can give you an all-day solution to ED issues.

The Bigger Picture

ED is a hard problem to talk about, and even though a large number of men deal with it, there’s a social stigma about it that many can’t seem to get over. We realize that can cause some men to feel avoidant towards professional help, and situations where you have to talk freely about a problem some might consider shameful. 

But talking to a healthcare professional is essential for proper treatment, if only because it will help you avoid making decisions on your own that could be bad for you — like taking two Viagra pills at once.