Your ADHD Meds Might Give You a Life-Threatening Erection

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The FDA issued a warning today that a small number of the 5 percent of young boys who have been diagnosed with ADHD are at risk for priapism, aka: boners that won't go away. Medications that contain methylphenidate can trap blood in the penises of men, and even more distressingly, young boys, who already suffer from the "terrible affliction" of hyperbonerism, which is funny, except when it's not.

Priapism, named after Priapus, the Greek fertility god pictured below, is most often caused by scarier and more painful conditions like––prepare to wince––kidney stones, hernias, or twisting of the spermatic cord, which can overshadow the severity of a persistent erection. Priapism on it's own, however, has to be treated or it can cause fertility problems, and, in the worst of cases, gangrene of the penis, which necessitates amputation.

Ancient image of Priapus. Public Domain

Products containing methylphenidate include Concerta, Daytrana, Focalin, Metadate CD, Methylin, Quillivant XR, and of course Ritalin, for which the FDA will require updates to the warning label. Their report also says that Strattera, which does not contain methylphenidate, can also cause priapism. The link between the drug and the condition is still unknown.

This announcement comes just on the heels of a New York Times longread by Alan Schwarz about the overdiagnosis of ADHD in order to sell drugs. In the piece, Schwarz mentions that the FDA has been on a multi-year mission to temper America's enthusiasm for stimulants as a safe and holistic solution for ADHD, which may or may not be their job. Psychiatrist and ADHD drug advocate William W. Dodson, is quoted in the piece as saying people "love a good conspiracy theory." He might note that the FDA timed more bad press for ADHD drug manufacturers to coincide with Schwarz's story.

That's not to say the drug companies haven't tried anything creepy to get kids on ADHD drugs. The New York Times piece details their emotionally manipulative ads that feature placid young boys (almost exclusively boys) in bucolic landscapes, eager to take out the trash and do their homework. Being a male is the leading risk factor for ADHD, and the ads seem to know this. The ADHD drug industrial complex even points the curious toward testosterone-heavy lists of famous ADHD sufferers including pro wrestler Matt Morgan, Woody Harrelson, Glenn Beck, and of course, Adam Levine. Levine has emerged as an ADHD figurehead in the way that Wilford Brimley became shorthand for diabetes treatments, and Jamie Lee Curtis is shorthand for constipation yogurt.

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Interestingly, one of the conservative treatments for priapism, after they try an ice pack, is pseudoephedrine, another stimulant which ER doctors use to induce "detumescence," your vocabulary word of the day (It means dick softness). Pseudoephedrine, when used in this way, has a list of side effects that are similar to the side effects of methylphenidate, the chemical that caused your unwanted boner in the first place. Only a qualified pharmacologist could determine that an interaction between the two drugs would be worse than your painful, throbbing penis. You'd better hope the ice and pseudoephedrine work though, because the other treatment options are nasty. And they include the use of one of these:

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If that's not graphic enough, I've gone ahead and queried Google Images for “corpus cavernosum irrigation” for you. Just click the link to check out what that means. Just kidding. Don't click that link, dum-dum!

The FDA says priapism occured in patients ranging in age from 8-33 years-old, but that 12.5 is the median age. Two of the patients involved in the study had to have the surgeries I just mentioned, an outcome that would really put a damper on a bar mitzvah.

@MikeLeePearl