CLERK Ian Lee, 47, first heard of the illegal sexual enhancement pill Power 1 Walnut from his friends.
He tried it out of sheer curiosity - and it worked for him.
The pill, which has since been found to plunge blood sugar levels instead of boosting sex drive, has made at least one man critically ill and landed a dozen more in hospital.
Mr Lee, a bachelor, said he bought some from vendors 'in a lane between Rowell and Desker roads'.
He told The Straits Times in Mandarin: 'My friends had tried it months ago and said it worked. So I decided to have a go at it.'
It worked so well for him that first time, that he took the pills again a month later, once again with beer. When he complained to the vendor that a $5 pack of four pills was too expensive, he got a dollar off the price.
After his third dose, he began feeling the side effects - trembling hands, tiredness and sleepiness, 'even when I was walking around'.
It was around the Chinese New Year that he took two pills before he visited a prostitute.
'This time, I felt like I was constantly drunk. I wanted to go see a doctor, but the waiting line was too long, so I took two Panadols instead,' he said.
All he remembers is watching TV one moment and being in an ambulance the next. At Tan Tock Seng Hospital, his blood sugar level was found to be dangerously low. He could have died.
Mr Lee was one of 13 men aged between 30 and 70 who fell victim to the side effects of Power 1 Walnut.
A week ago, the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) issued a warning on the product, when a doctor raised the alert after having tended to two patients who admitted taking the drug. The men wanted to become energetic lovers but risked unconsciousness, fits and even death.
Power 1 Walnut. a product of China firm Guangzhou Xinkuaili, claims to contain only natural herbs.
But preliminary tests have shown it to contain drugs controlled under the Poisons Act - glibenclamide, a prescription drug for diabetes, and sildenafil, which is sold as Viagra.
Ms Chan Cheng Leng of HSA's Pharmacovigilance, Communications and Research Division, said that by composition, Power 1 Walnut seemed more like a diabetes drug than a sexual enhancement one.
It contains 90mg of glibenclamide - about five times the amount prescribed to a diabetic patient - and only 7mg of sildenafil, far below the 25mg to 100mg needed for any sexual enhancement effect.
The vigilant doctor who alerted HSA to Power 1 Walnut was Dr Kao Shih Ling, 28, a registrar at the National University Hospital.
Alarm bells went off in her mind when she saw two patients in their 30s with very low blood sugar levels at NUH's emergency department.
She said: 'They refused to tell me exactly what they had consumed... When pressed, they said 'herbal soup'.'
But when the third patient came in with the same symptoms, she did not let up on her questioning.
'He relented and...told me it was Power 1 Walnut pills and even brought samples,' said the doctor, who called HSA that day, Jan 29.
As for Mr Lee, he still feels weak and trembles. He seems to have learnt his lesson though.
Asked if he would try Power 1 Walnut even just one more time, he said: 'No! Never again! For one night of fun, I almost lost my life. It's not worth it.'
