Icariin in high doses Horny Goat Weed

Hey all! In the past couple days I’ve been taking horny goat weed and I have to tell you, it was good. I had recently been suffering from some bad EQ but this really pt me over the top. The stuff I was taking had 10% Icariin, which I’ve read is the active component. I see stuff online in higher doses, up to 50%. I’m wondering if any of you have tried this stuff and what you think about it. Thanks

I’m a fan personally.

Icariin is a PDE-5 inhibitor just like Viagra and Cialis, so please do be careful with dosing (as it can cause the same side effects including blindness!), and I’ve found it to be as powerful in reasonable doses but with a much lower half-life (1.5-2 hours).

It seems to also have some effects on testosterone (I’ll find the studies on pubmed to cite and edit into the post), but I don’t know if they’re distinct from the effects other PDE5 inhibitors (Cialis/Viagra have been established to alter the Testosterone:Estrogen ratio positively over long-term treatment).

Blindness, really? How much of that would you have to take!

Blindness and deafness have been reported with viagra (sildenafil) due to the fact that as well as affecting cells in the penis it affects similar cells in the eyes and ears, but it’s a rare effect. I’m not sure what dose it would require with icariin but you’d probably get the typical visual disturbances if you were anywhere close to it (flashes of light/blue tint).

I’ve taken up to 1g of icariin (5g HGW of standardized extract at 20% icariin) without a problem.