Levitra

Endorsed by Mexican TV and screen actor Andres Garcia, the Mentor Titan Inflatable Penile Prosthesis, which the actor had implanted after his prostate cancer surgery, has become much in demand among Hispanic men.

The actor has been publicly open about the effects of prostate cancer surgery, which left him impotent.

His candid and frequent commentary on television about the implant, which he affectionately calls "La Bombita" (little pump), has boosted demand for the procedure and triggered a call for training courses for Mexican urologists.

Alarcon's is the first such course.

The surgical implant, developed by Santa Barbara, Calif.-based medical device company Mentor Corporation, works by implanting two cylinders in the penis, a pump in the scrotum and a reservoir in the abdomen filled with saline solution.

The user inflates the cylinders to create an erection and deflates it after intercourse.

This is usually an outpatient procedure and in many cases covered by Medicare and private insurance.

Alarcon, a Hispanic urologist based at Monterey Park Hospital, is a leading proponent of the technology and has performed more than 500 such procedures.

Monterey Park Hospital has long championed innovative urological procedures...

That is a temporary condition.

But about 50 male Viagra users have had sudden, painless vision loss, usually in one eye.

That can be permanent.

Many of the men who experienced this had high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, heart disease or were smokers.

It hasn't been proved that Viagra is responsible for the loss of vision.

It could be that those other conditions contributed to it.

However, the Food and Drug Administration requires that the possibility of permanent vision impairment be listed on the information literature of all three drugs.

The man you speak of should speak with his eye doctor about using Viagra.

Sometimes the doctor, with a handheld scope, can see changes at the back of the eye that predispose a person to vision loss.

Q: My wife had cellulitis on her leg three years ago.

It has returned.

Nobody can tell us what causes it.

I've been told to wrap her legs for the rest of her life.

Is there a cure or a cause for this?

Someone suggested it could be caused by a pet dog.

A Cellulitis is a spreading infection of the skin and the tissues directly beneath the skin.

Sometimes the spread is alarmingly rapid.

The cause is the staph or strep germ.

A cut, a boil, a small pimple, an insect bite or athlete's foot can be the doorway through which the germ enters the skin.

The wound can be so small that the person cannot see it - after all, these germs are mi...

The letter doesn't explain the situation further, including this question: How does a health plan determine the fair number of times an ED sufferer gets to make whoopie?

Under the old guidelines, a Cat member could get all the ED tablets he wanted, as per a doctor's prescription.

The co-pay varies by job classification.

Managers pay $35 per script, while hourly workers and retirees can pay much less - in some cases, just $2.

Cat spokesman Rusty Dunn blamed the ED-pill cutback on the need to rein in Cat's health-care costs.

Last year, the company spent $600 million on health care, $155 million of that on drugs.

He did not have a breakdown as to the cost of ED prescriptions.

Recently, as Restat looked to cut costs, ED drugs got slapped onto the chopping block.

"Erectile-dysfunction drugs are what we call a lifestyle drug," Dunn says.

"They're not life-saving drugs.

They're important.

...

(But) setting limits doesn't jeopardize anyone's health." I know a few Cat workers who'd argue that point.

So would their wives.

Still, Dunn says, the company has to draw the line.

"We can't allow unlimited access to ED drugs or any drugs," he says.

Regardless, how did the Cat plan set four pills as the monthly threshold?

Surely that can't be the average output by Cat workers, right?

"We didn't do any kind of (Cat) survey," Dunn says.

Rather, Restat looked ...