Archive for August, 2026

Tadalafil is Cialis — the “boner pill.” I didn’t start it for that. I started it for BPH, an enlarged prostate.

I just turned 58 and the old-man problems are stacking up. The first real one was pissing. It got harder. You finish and then you need to go back three or four times. Not a crisis, just annoying. My PSA was high too. I don’t care. I’m nearly 60. Nobody is sticking a finger up my arse for a DRE. If they want a look at the prostate they can do an MRI. Prostate cancer? Pretty much everybody gets some of it eventually. It’s the least of your problems at this age.

So tadalafil is symptom treatment for me. And it works.

Morning wood is back and stronger. The stream is better — cleaner, more complete, less of the stop-start nonsense. That alone made it worth trying. If the PSA stays high or climbs further I’ll look at a DHT blocker. That’s the line. No biopsies. No cancer treatments. Not interested.

At the same time I’ve dropped 45 lbs of fat. I haven’t been this weight since my late twenties. Training feels different now. I’m starting to feel pretty damn good from the fat loss but just felt the same until my BF% got to mid 20’s. From what I have read under 20% is when you really get the health benefits & feel the spark. Bring it on.

What the research actually shows

Daily low-dose tadalafil (the 5 mg range used for BPH) does more than just open the plumbing and help the erections.

It is a PDE5 inhibitor. It keeps nitric oxide signalling going longer, which relaxes blood vessels system-wide. Better blood flow means fuller pumps in the gym, more oxygen and nutrients getting into working muscle, and faster clearance of metabolic waste. That shows up as better endurance during sessions and less residual soreness.

There is also solid human data on body composition. In a randomised trial of non-obese men around my age with mild ED or LUTS, 5 mg daily for two months produced a clear increase in abdominal lean mass. The gain reversed when they stopped the drug. The same study showed improved endothelial function, a better testosterone-to-estradiol ratio, and higher insulin levels that correlated with the lean-mass change. Lab work on muscle cells showed increased androgen receptor expression and myogenin — the machinery that responds to androgens and drives muscle development.

Other work links the same nitric-oxide/cGMP pathway to better insulin sensitivity, improved glucose uptake into muscle, and support for mitochondrial function. Cardiovascular data is interesting too: large observational work has associated PDE5 inhibitor use with meaningfully lower rates of cardiac events and mortality. Some cognitive studies have shown increased cerebral blood flow, though the Alzheimer’s prevention data is mixed.

How I’m using it

For me it’s primarily the BPH and the stream. The morning wood improvement is a welcome side effect. The gym benefits — better pumps, slightly better recovery between sets, the overall sense that blood is moving better — sit on top of that. I’m not chasing some magic anabolic effect. I’m using a drug that is already approved for the prostate symptoms I actually have, and taking the extra circulatory and body-composition signals as a bonus while I continue training and eating for fat loss.

I’ve now lost 45 lbs. The scale is back where it was in my late twenties. Strength is holding, energy is better, and the constant low-level irritation of incomplete emptying is gone. That combination has me feeling pretty sharp although I always feel good.

Symptom control first. Everything else is secondary . Why? Because Urologists will rape your ass, rob you & call it a cure. If the numbers stay high later I’ll add a DHT blocker. Until then this is working.