The Secret of Half-Priced Viagra

Each diamond-shaped Viagra pill costs the same (almost $10) whether you get the 25-milligram (mg), 50-mg or 100-mg version. This flat-pricing strategy has led many in the older-than-5O crowd to buy the larger pill and try to break it up into smaller pieces.

The patient should take the dose the doctor recommends, says Dr. Ira Sharlip, past clinical professor of urology at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine. "But I can tell you it's common practice for physicians to recommend a dose of 50 mg and write a prescription for a 100-mg tablet."

Carmen Reitano, inventor and Viagra user, was involved in a conversation about the difficulties of splitting a Viagra pill.

"It explodes," complained one man. "You cut it with a knife and it splits apart with such fury it bounces off the wall," said another.

Reitano had never tried splitting his Viagra pills, but he decided to give it a try. He went home, took out the kitchen knife and tried to cut open one of his Viagra pills. Nothing happened. He went at it with an X-Acto® knife blade. Nothing. A hammer. Still, nothing.

"It's not flat. It's awkward to hold. There's no scoring on the covering," Reitano discovered. So, to help the many frustrated Viagra users, Reitano designed the V2 Pill Splitter, for which he was awarded a patent.

Pfizer, which manufactures Viagra, did not specifically comment, but recommends against pill-splitting.

For pill splitters, visit www.forgettingthepill.com/vsplitter.html or www.pillcutter.com.