Nitrate-based “poppers,” used recreationally, and oral erectile dysfunction drugs such as Viagra are a potentially lethal combination. Both are potent vasodilators, which together could cause a dangerous drop in blood pressure.

Recreational drug users aren’t known to pay close attention to the chemical composition of the drugs they’re using to get high and to party with. It therefore is hardly surprising to find that most users of “poppers” are unaware that these recreational drugs contain high levels of nitrates.

That could pose a potentially lethal threat to men who take Viagra — or any of the popular oral ED medications — and also use “poppers” (amyl or butyl nitrite). Used pharmaceutically in the treatment of angina, these nitrate-based compounds don’t mix well with PDE5 inhibitors.

A Recipe for Disaster

Both nitrates and PDE5 inhibitors accomplish their medicinal goals by lowering Blood Pressure. In the case of angina, this lowering of blood pressure eases the chest pain associated with temporarily compromised blood flow to the heart. And for men suffering from erectile dysfunction, the temporary expansion of blood vessels to optimize blood flow to the penis also results in sharply lower blood pressure.

Taken together, nitrates and PDE5 inhibitors can result in a precipitous decline in blood pressure, one that in extreme cases could result in death.

It can reasonably be argued that poppers themselves are unsafe. A recreational form of the amyl nitrite ampoules that were legitimately used as an inhaled cardiac medication, poppers are usually sold in small bottles containing butyl nitrite, which is closely related to amyl nitrite. While the medicinal form of the drug is meant to be used in an emergency cardiac episode, recreational poppers are often inhaled repeatedly to cause brief highs that are characterized by momentary dizziness and feelings of euphoria.

Given that their use isn’t really healthy in the first place, risking an interaction with an ED drug that is also a potent vasodilator could produce disastrous consequences.

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