Big increase in potency drugs

But the biggest increase between 2006 and 2016 has occurred in two other age groups, the significantly younger and the very oldest. After the sixty-year-olds, the men who are 70 years old and older are the biggest consumers of potency drugs. It is also in the oldest group that consumption has increased the most. In the group of men aged 70 and older, an increase of 69 percent can be seen over the last decade. Sales now stand at 200 prescriptions per thousand inhabitants, compared to 118 prescriptions per thousand inhabitants in 2006.

- Patients have become better at taking responsibility for their own care, says Birgitta Hulter, licensed clinical sexologist and doctor of neurology with many years of experience in dealing with patients with sexual problems. We have become better at seeking help, even for problems of this type.

The other age group where the increase is large is men between 30 and 39 years old. Here, the number of collected prescriptions per thousand inhabitants has increased by 51 percent in ten years. However, the total consumption of potency drugs in the group is still relatively small. In 2016, a total of just over 5,800 men between the ages of 30 and 39 picked up an impotence medicine.

Put simply, there are two large patient groups that are relevant for potency drugs, says Birgitta Hulter. Partly those who have diseases that affect erectile function, such as prostate cancer and cardiovascular disease. These probably make up the older part of the patients who receive potency drugs.

- Then there is a younger group who have sexual difficulties, where the problems are of a psychological nature, says Birgitta Hulter.

Even that group can get a lot of help from erectile support drugs, to overcome their problems. For that patient group, the drugs can be seen more as a cure than as lifelong treatment. Birgitta Hulter is not surprised by the increase.

- There is  비아그라 구입 , says Birgitta Hulter. There is a lot that affects sexual function. We in Sweden think we are so free when it comes to sexuality. But it has still not been allowed to take any major place in health care. Many people think that potency problems are something that can be solved in private, and that you should not come to healthcare with them.

Has that setting changed?

- Yes absolutely. Twenty years ago, patients did not ask for help in the way they dare to do today. Then they booked more for the doctor and didn't say much. Now the relationship is often the opposite, patients almost come with ready-made prescriptions that they want the doctor to sign.

However, sexual problems in particular are still not something that patients rush to their GP for help with. But patient associations such as the Prostatacancerförbundet have made efforts to remove the taboo surrounding sexual dysfunction. Erectile dysfunction is a common side effect of prostate cancer surgery.

Other common causes behind potency problems are stress, alcohol, smoking and diabetes. There are also many drugs that can impair potency, such as antidepressants and blood pressure lowering agents, that is, drugs that are consumed by a large part of the population.

Pfizer's little blue tablet Viagra with the substance sildenafil was approved in Sweden at the end of the 1990s. It had already become one of the world's best-known medicines, including after the big launch in the USA with soccer star Pelé. The substance, which works as a vasodilator, was invented in Great Britain when trying to develop a new drug to treat angina. Before Viagra came along, there was no tablet treatment for erectile dysfunction. The substance is now one of the most prescribed in the world. There are now also other substances, tadalafil (product names Cialis or Adcirca) and vardenafil (Levitra).

In Sweden, the potency medicine became one of the reasons why the agency TLV, the Dental Care and Medicines Benefit Agency, was established. Until the turn of the millennium, most approved drugs had been subsidized by the state, but with new drugs, which came to be known as lifestyle drugs, the costs skyrocketed. In 2002, it was decided that Viagra would not be included in the high-cost protection.