Safety
No boxed warning. Never take it with nitrates (such as nitroglycerin or “poppers”) or riociguat: together they can cause a dangerous drop in blood pressure. Don’t combine it with another ED medicine. Get emergency care for an erection lasting more than 4 hours, and stop and call a clinician for sudden vision or hearing loss. Blood pressure can also drop with alpha-blockers, other blood pressure medicines or heavy drinking. Ask a clinician whether your heart is healthy enough for sex. Vardenafil can also prolong the QT interval, so tell your clinician about heart-rhythm problems or heart-rhythm medicines.
Legal status
Prescription only; FDA-approved. Generic vardenafil is FDA-approved for ED. Compounded vardenafil, such as a chewable, is not FDA-approved.
What vardenafil is
Levitra was approved on August 19, 2003, and the dissolving Staxyn on June 17, 2010. Drugs@FDA lists both brands as discontinued; generic vardenafil tablets remain available.
FDA-approved for erectile dysfunction.
Dosing
Tablet, as needed, at most once a day. 10 mg about 60 minutes before sex for most men, adjusted to 5 mg or 20 mg. Men 65 and older may start at 5 mg, and some drug interactions cap the dose at 2.5 mg or 5 mg. Your clinician sets the dose for you.
How well it works
In four 3-month trials of 2,431 men, including men with diabetes and men after prostate surgery, 5 mg, 10 mg and 20 mg each improved erectile function scores more than placebo. Individual results vary.
Vardenafil cost
The providers we track don’t publish a price for generic vardenafil tablets. Compounded vardenafil costs $4.34 a tablet at BlueChew and from $59.99 a month at Maximus; neither is FDA-approved (Oct 18, 2026).