IV Vitamin Therapy and the Myers’ Cocktail: What Drips Deliver and What Evidence Exists

The pop-up tent outside a half-marathon finish line had a longer queue than the banana table. Inside, runners lay back in folding chairs while bags of pale-yellow fluid emptied into their forearms. Nobody looked unwell. Several were filming.

That scene explains why iv vitamin therapy is climbing the search charts again. As of September 2026, the surge has nothing to do with a new trial or an approval; it is driven by creator videos of “recovery drips,” mobile services that bring a nurse to your door, and a wave of clinic marketing promising a “reset” in under an hour. The science underneath has barely moved in two decades, and that gap between the hype and the published record is exactly what this piece sets out to close.

What follows is the honest version: what a drip physically delivers, what the Myers’ cocktail contains, what the evidence can and cannot support, and the moments when a vein-delivered nutrient is genuinely the right medical call.

What is IV vitamin therapy and how does it work?

Start with the plumbing. An intravenous (IV) infusion places a thin plastic tube, called a cannula, into a vein, usually on the back of the hand or inner forearm. A bag of sterile fluid hangs above the arm and drains by gravity or a pump, carrying whatever has been mixed into it straight into the bloodstream.

In a hospital, that fluid is typically saline or a balanced salt solution, chosen to replace what a dehydrated or bleeding patient has lost. Wellness drips borrow the same hardware but change the recipe: a base of salt water with vitamins and minerals added, sometimes with amino acids or antioxidants such as glutathione, a sulfur-containing compound your liver makes on its own.

The pitch rests on one true fact. Swallowed nutrients must survive stomach acid, cross the gut wall and pass through the liver before reaching the rest of the body, and the gut sets limits on how much it absorbs. An IV route sidesteps all of that, so blood levels rise quickly and predictably. A typical wellness infusion takes 30–60 minutes.

Here is the less-advertised half. Your kidneys are not passive. For water-soluble vitamins such as C and the B group, they filter out whatever the tissues cannot store, and within hours much of a large dose leaves in urine. Rapid delivery, in other words, is not the same as lasting benefit. The question that matters is not whether a drip raises a blood level (it does) but whether a healthy person with a working digestive system gains anything from that spike. That is where the evidence comes in, and it is thinner than the queue at the finish line suggests.

What is in a Myers' cocktail?

The name belongs to John Myers, a Baltimore physician who used intravenous nutrient mixtures in the 1960s and 1970s. After his death in 1984, Alan Gaby took over some of his patients and later published a review describing a standardized version, which is why the formula still carries Myers’ name rather than a pharmaceutical label.

The classic blend contains four families of ingredients: magnesium, a mineral involved in muscle and nerve signaling; calcium; several B vitamins, including thiamine, B6, B12 and B5; and vitamin C. Modern clinics often add zinc, glutathione or extra B12 and market the result under names like “immunity,” “energy” or “beauty.” Exact amounts vary from provider to provider, which is one reason published studies are hard to compare.

Why these ingredients? Gaby’s 2002 paper argued that pushing nutrients to blood concentrations unreachable by mouth might have pharmacological effects beyond simple repletion. The paper is a case series and clinical opinion, not a controlled trial, and the author said so plainly.

Two practical facts are worth knowing. First, magnesium given quickly into a vein commonly produces a warm flush that spreads from the face downward; providers call it “the magnesium feeling” and it fades within minutes, but it can be unsettling. Second, every item in the mixture is available in food and in ordinary oral supplements, and deficiency of any of them is diagnosable with a blood test. A Myers’ cocktail is therefore not a secret formula so much as a familiar shopping list delivered by an unusual route. Whether the route adds anything is the real argument, and the next sections take it up.

What changed recently

Not much on the science side, and that is the story. As of September 2026, the two documents that anchor most honest discussions of iv vitamin therapy are still Gaby’s 2002 descriptive review of the Myers’ cocktail and the 2018 Harvard Health commentary on so-called drip bars. No large randomized trial in healthy adults has been published since, and no regulatory body has approved an intravenous vitamin product for wellness, energy or hangover indications.

What has changed is distribution. Drips moved out of integrative clinics and into mobile vans, salons, hotel suites and weekend events. Social platforms rewarded the visual: a cannula, a bag, a smiling face. Searches for “drip near me” and “Myers’ cocktail” rose alongside the content, and clinics responded with menu-style pricing and bundled memberships.

Safety oversight has tightened in parallel. Public health agencies have for years warned about compounded products mixed outside licensed pharmacies, because an injectable prepared under non-sterile conditions can introduce bacteria or fungi directly into the blood. Compounded IV mixtures are not approved medicines; they are prepared to order and are not products for self-use or purchase outside a supervised setting. Several outbreak investigations in the past decade traced bloodstream infections to contaminated injectable preparations, which is why licensed providers now emphasize pharmacy sourcing and nurse-level administration.

Vitamin-specific knowledge did progress. The NIH Office of Dietary Supplements updated its professional fact sheets on vitamin C, B12 and magnesium with current absorption data, and those sheets remain the clearest explanation of why swallowing more does not mean absorbing proportionally more. That pharmacology, not any new drip trial, is what has quietly reshaped expert commentary on the trend.

Why '100% absorption' is less impressive than it sounds

Every drip menu leads with the same number: oral supplements absorb poorly, drips absorb completely. The first half is true only in a narrow sense, and the second half misses what the body does next.

Take vitamin C. According to the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements, the gut absorbs 70–90% of moderate amounts, and the fraction falls below 50% as intakes climb, because the transporters that carry it across the intestinal wall saturate. Above a certain tissue level, the kidneys excrete the excess within hours. Intravenous delivery can produce plasma concentrations several times higher than any oral route, which is why cancer researchers have tested IV vitamin C as an investigational agent. For a well-nourished person, though, the spike is temporary and the tissues were already full.

B12 tells a similar story with a twist. Absorption normally depends on intrinsic factor, a protein made in the stomach; only about 1% of a swallowed dose is absorbed by passive diffusion without it. People with pernicious anemia or after certain stomach surgeries lack intrinsic factor and genuinely need injections. For everyone else, oral B12 works well enough that trials comparing high-dose oral tablets with injections in deficient patients found comparable normalization of blood levels.

Magnesium absorbed from food runs around 30–40%, and a bolus into a vein is quickly filtered out unless body stores are low. The pattern is consistent: bioavailability is a real pharmacological concept, but it describes the entry door, not the destination. A nutrient that arrives fast and leaves fast has not done more work than one that arrived slowly and stayed. The relevant question for any drip is whether a measured deficiency existed in the first place.

What the evidence actually says, graded

Grading matters more here than almost anywhere in wellness. Evidence comes in tiers: randomized controlled trials (participants assigned by chance to real treatment or placebo), observational studies (watching outcomes without assigning treatment) and expert opinion or case series (clinicians reporting what they saw). Here is where iv vitamin therapy sits.

Randomized trials: One small double-blind trial from 2009 compared weekly Myers’ cocktail infusions with placebo saline in 34 adults with fibromyalgia over eight weeks. Both groups improved; the difference between them was not statistically significant. That is the only placebo-controlled trial of the classic formula, and its size limits any conclusion in either direction. For hangovers, energy, jet lag, athletic recovery or skin, no randomized trial of a wellness drip exists at all.

Observational data: Clinic surveys and open-label reports describe people feeling better after infusions. Without a placebo arm, those reports cannot separate the nutrients from the fluid, the rest, the attention or expectation itself. Saline alone, delivered by a calm nurse in a reclining chair, is a powerful experience.

Expert opinion: Gaby’s 2002 case series and most clinic literature fall here. Mainstream reviewers, including the Harvard Health commentary, conclude that healthy people with normal kidneys and a varied diet gain no demonstrated benefit.

Where IV nutrients are strongly evidenced: treating documented deficiency when the gut cannot do the job. Thiamine for suspected Wernicke’s encephalopathy, B12 for pernicious anemia, magnesium for severe hypomagnesemia and IV fluids for clinically significant dehydration are standard hospital medicine backed by decades of practice and trial data. The strength of evidence depends entirely on who is in the chair.

Does IV vitamin therapy help hangovers, fatigue or jet lag?

These three complaints drive most bookings, so they deserve a direct answer each.

A hangover is partly dehydration, but mostly it is inflammation, poor sleep, low blood sugar and the lingering effects of acetaldehyde, the compound your liver produces as it breaks down alcohol. Mayo Clinic lists time, water, bland food and rest as the measures with support; it does not list IV fluids. A liter of saline will correct the dehydrated part faster than a glass of water, which is why some people feel noticeably better mid-bag. The headache, nausea and fog that come from the other mechanisms are untouched, and no trial has shown a vitamin add-on changes them.

Fatigue is the broadest complaint and the one where a drip is most likely to miss the point. Persistent tiredness has a long differential: iron deficiency, underactive thyroid, sleep apnea, depression, diabetes, medication side effects, and yes, occasionally low B12 or vitamin D. Each of those has a specific test and a specific treatment. Infusing B vitamins into someone whose fatigue comes from untreated sleep apnea offers an afternoon of feeling cared for and then nothing.

Jet lag is a mismatch between your internal clock and the local sun. Light exposure timing, scheduled sleep and, in some trials, melatonin have evidence. Hydration during a flight helps with the dry-cabin headache, and that is as far as fluid goes; vitamins do not reset circadian rhythm.

None of this means people are imagining the lift. Thirty quiet minutes, a liter of fluid and someone attentive at your side will improve a bad morning. The honest label for that is hydration plus rest, and both are available without a needle.

Can a drip boost your immune system?

“Immunity drip” is the best-selling label on most menus, and it leans on vitamin C and zinc. Both nutrients are genuinely essential to immune cells; neither has evidence that extra amounts in a well-fed adult prevent illness, by any route.

The NIH Office of Dietary Supplements summarizes decades of vitamin C trials this way: regular oral supplementation does not reduce how often most people catch colds, though it may shorten them modestly, by roughly 8% in adults, and it appears more useful in people under heavy physical stress such as marathon runners or soldiers in cold environments. Those findings come from oral studies. No trial has tested whether an intravenous bolus adds anything, and the pharmacology argues against it: plasma vitamin C peaks after an infusion and returns to baseline within hours as the kidneys clear it.

High-dose IV vitamin C has a serious research life in oncology, where investigators are studying whether very high plasma concentrations act as a pro-oxidant against tumor cells. That work is investigational, conducted in trials under medical supervision, and should not be confused with wellness infusions in healthy people.

Zinc has modest evidence for shortening colds when taken orally within a day of symptoms, with gastrointestinal upset as the trade-off. Intravenous zinc outside of nutritional support for patients who cannot eat has no comparable data.

What reliably supports immune function is unglamorous: adequate sleep, vaccination according to CDC or WHO schedules, hand hygiene, not smoking, and a diet that already supplies vitamin C and zinc, which most mixed diets do. A drip cannot substitute for any of those, and marketing that implies it can is making a claim the literature does not.

Who actually needs intravenous nutrients?

Setting aside the wellness market, intravenous vitamins and minerals are everyday hospital medicine for a specific reason: the gut has failed, or the deficiency is too dangerous to correct slowly. Knowing these cases clarifies what a drip is for.

• Pernicious anemia and certain stomach or small-bowel surgeries. Without intrinsic factor or the final section of the small intestine, B12 cannot be absorbed in meaningful amounts. Injections, usually into muscle rather than a vein, are standard and often lifelong.
• Suspected thiamine deficiency. In people with alcohol use disorder, severe vomiting or prolonged poor intake, intravenous thiamine is given urgently because the brain injury it prevents, Wernicke’s encephalopathy, can become permanent within days.
• Severe magnesium or potassium depletion. Very low levels disturb heart rhythm; intravenous correction under monitoring is used when oral replacement would be too slow or is not tolerated.
• Hyperemesis gravidarum. Pregnant patients who cannot keep fluids down may need IV fluids and thiamine in a supervised setting.
• Malabsorption and parenteral nutrition. Crohn’s disease, short bowel syndrome and some cancers can require feeding by vein, with a full complement of vitamins and trace elements.
• Clinically significant dehydration. Vomiting, diarrhea, heat illness or inability to drink, where MedlinePlus notes IV fluids are used when oral rehydration fails.

Notice the common thread. Each case begins with a diagnosis, usually confirmed by a blood test, and ends with a route chosen because the mouth would not work. That sequence, test then treat, is the mirror image of a wellness menu, where the route is chosen first and the reason is assumed.

What are the disadvantages of IV drip therapy?

Any needle that enters a vein opens a path that the skin normally keeps closed. Serious harm from wellness drips is uncommon, but the risks are concrete and worth stating plainly.

At the site. Bruising is routine. Phlebitis, inflammation of the vein wall, produces a tender red cord along the arm and sometimes a low fever. Infiltration happens when the cannula slips out of the vein and fluid pools under the skin; with some additives this stings and can damage tissue. Local infection appears as spreading redness, warmth and pus a day or two later.

In the bloodstream. Bacteria introduced through a poorly cleaned site or a contaminated bag can seed a bloodstream infection. Outbreaks tied to compounded injectables have been documented by public health agencies, which is why pharmacy sourcing and sterile technique matter more than any ingredient.

Fluid and electrolytes. A liter of saline is harmless to a healthy adult; for someone with heart failure or kidney disease it can tip the balance toward fluid overload, with breathlessness and swelling. Rapid magnesium or calcium can lower blood pressure or disturb heart rhythm. Potassium, when included, must be given slowly under monitoring.

Specific nutrients. High intravenous vitamin C is converted to oxalate, raising kidney stone risk in susceptible people, and it can trigger red-cell breakdown in those with G6PD deficiency, an inherited enzyme shortfall that is often undiagnosed. Thiamine has, rarely, caused allergic reactions.

The opportunity cost. The quietest disadvantage is delay. Treating fatigue, frequent colds or brain fog with a drip can postpone the blood test that would have found anemia, thyroid disease or sleep apnea. For most people the needle is the smallest risk in the chair; the missed diagnosis is the larger one.

IV vitamin therapy vs oral supplements vs medical infusion: a side-by-side

A table makes the distinction between routes clearer than paragraphs can, because the differences are not about the vitamins at all; they are about who needs them and why.

Question	Oral supplement or food	Wellness drip (e.g. Myers’ cocktail)	Medically indicated IV nutrient
Starts with a diagnosis?	Sometimes (e.g. confirmed low vitamin D)	Rarely; chosen from a menu	Always; blood test or clinical emergency
Speed of blood-level rise	Hours, limited by gut transporters	Minutes	Minutes, with monitoring
Duration of effect for water-soluble vitamins	Steady with daily intake	Hours; excess cleared by kidneys	Repeated as needed to correct a deficit
Evidence of benefit in healthy adults	Low for most supplements beyond correcting deficiency	None from randomized trials	Not applicable; used in illness
Evidence of benefit in deficiency or malabsorption	Good when the gut works	Unstudied for this purpose	Strong, standard of care
Main risks	Stomach upset; overdose with fat-soluble vitamins	Phlebitis, infection, fluid overload, oxalate stones	Same risks, managed in a monitored setting
Who decides	You, ideally with clinician input	Provider on site, often without your full records	Treating clinician with your history and labs

Read down the first row and the pattern of the whole table follows. Where a measured problem exists and the gut cannot fix it, the vein is the right tool and the evidence is strong. Where the gut works and the problem is undefined, the same tool offers speed without a destination.

What to do before getting an IV, if you still choose one

Plenty of readers will book a drip anyway, for a wedding week, a long race or simple curiosity. Fair enough. The following steps reduce the real risks and improve the odds that someone catches a problem the drip would otherwise mask.

Begin with your own doctor, not the provider. Ask whether any of your conditions make extra fluid or specific minerals unwise: heart failure, kidney disease, high blood pressure, a history of kidney stones, G6PD deficiency, pregnancy, or any medication that affects potassium or magnesium levels, including some diuretics and blood pressure drugs. If you have had unexplained fatigue, request the ordinary blood tests first; a result that explains the tiredness changes the whole plan.

Then interrogate the provider the way you would a surgeon:

• Who inserts the cannula and who stays in the room? A registered nurse or paramedic with a licensed clinician overseeing is the minimum.
• Where were the bags prepared? Mixtures from a licensed sterile compounding pharmacy or manufactured products are the standard; mixing on a kitchen counter is not.
• What is in the bag, by ingredient, and what happens if you react? A written protocol for allergic reaction and the presence of emergency medication are reasonable expectations.
• Will they take a health history and check blood pressure before starting? A provider who skips that step is skipping the part that keeps you safe.

On the day, eat normally, drink water and wear a sleeve that rolls up. Afterward, keep the dressing dry for a few hours and watch the site for 48 hours. Keep a note of exactly what was infused; if you end up in an emergency department later for any reason, that list matters.

Common myths about IV vitamin therapy, corrected

Viral claims travel faster than fact sheets. These are the five that circulate most, each paired with what the evidence supports.

“Drips flush toxins.” The liver and kidneys clear metabolic waste continuously; a liter of saline does not accelerate that beyond normal hydration, and no study has measured a “toxin” removed by a vitamin infusion. The word is undefined in this context.

“You absorb 100% so it must work better.” Entry is not effect. Water-soluble vitamins delivered above tissue needs are excreted within hours, as NIH fact sheets on vitamin C and B12 describe.

“A Myers’ cocktail is proven for fibromyalgia and migraines.” The single placebo-controlled trial found no significant difference from saline. Case reports describe improvement; case reports cannot establish cause.

“It is just vitamins, so it cannot hurt.” Phlebitis, infection, fluid overload in heart or kidney disease, and oxalate kidney stones from high-dose vitamin C are all documented. The route carries risk independent of the ingredients.

“Hangovers are dehydration, so a drip fixes them.” Dehydration is one component. Acetaldehyde, inflammation, disrupted sleep and low blood sugar are the others, and fluids do not touch them.

A sixth claim deserves gentler handling: “I feel amazing afterward.” That is almost certainly true. Rest, attention, fluid and expectation produce real changes in how people feel, and dismissing that experience as imaginary is both unkind and inaccurate. The honest correction is narrower: the feeling is real, the mechanism is probably not the vitamins, and the same lift is available in cheaper and safer forms for most people.

What actually moves the needle on energy, immunity and recovery

If a drip’s appeal is the promise of a tangible intervention, it helps to know which ordinary measures have the stronger evidence, because they are the comparison a reader is really making.

Sleep. Short sleep impairs immune response to vaccination, raises susceptibility to colds in controlled exposure studies, and degrades reaction time and mood within a single night. No infusion has that evidence base. Seven to nine hours for most adults remains the single highest-yield change.

Food first. The NHS and NIH agree that most people in high-income countries obtain adequate vitamin C, B vitamins and magnesium from a varied diet, and that supplements, oral or otherwise, help mainly when intake or absorption is inadequate. A deficiency found on a blood test is treated with a targeted oral supplement in the overwhelming majority of cases.

Water, by mouth. Oral rehydration corrects mild to moderate dehydration effectively; the World Health Organization built global diarrhea treatment on that fact. For a sweaty race or a late night, drinking to thirst with a salted snack does the job the bag claims.

Vaccines and hygiene. Immunity against influenza, COVID-19 and other preventable infections comes from vaccination according to CDC or WHO eligibility guidance and from hand washing, not from vitamin blood levels.

Movement. Regular moderate exercise improves fatigue in trials across chronic conditions, from cancer survivorship to depression, with a consistency no nutrient infusion approaches.

None of these photograph well. All of them rest on randomized or large observational evidence, and that is the standard against which a drip should be judged. If the goal is to feel and function better over months rather than an afternoon, the list above is where the evidence points.

When to see a doctor

Two sets of warning signs matter: those that follow a drip, and those that should have prompted a medical visit instead of one.

After an infusion, seek urgent care for:

• Fever, chills or shaking within hours to days, which can signal a bloodstream infection.
• Spreading redness, warmth, a hard tender cord along the vein, or pus at the site.
• Shortness of breath, chest tightness, swelling of the legs or sudden weight gain, which can indicate fluid overload, especially with heart or kidney disease.
• Palpitations, fainting, severe dizziness or confusion, which may reflect an electrolyte disturbance.
• Hives, facial or throat swelling, or wheezing, the signs of an allergic reaction.
• Severe flank pain or blood in the urine in the following days, which can suggest a kidney stone.

Before booking, see a clinician if the reason for the drip is any of these: fatigue lasting more than a few weeks; frequent infections; unexplained weight change; persistent dizziness; pins and needles or numbness in the hands or feet; low mood or trouble concentrating; heavy menstrual bleeding; or a known digestive condition, bariatric surgery history or restrictive diet that could impair absorption. Each of those has a diagnostic pathway, and most start with simple blood tests.

If you already take prescribed medicines, including diuretics, blood pressure drugs, lithium or chemotherapy, do not add an infusion without your prescriber’s knowledge, and do not change or stop any medicine on the advice of a drip provider. Decisions about intravenous nutrients, like decisions about any treatment, belong with the clinician who knows your history and can order and interpret the tests that tell you whether a vein-delivered vitamin has any job to do.

Frequently asked questions

What is IV drip therapy and how does it work?

IV drip therapy delivers fluid, vitamins and minerals through a cannula placed in a vein, bypassing the digestive system so blood levels rise within minutes. A typical session lasts 30–60 minutes. The body then handles the load as it would any surplus: water-soluble vitamins above tissue needs are filtered out by the kidneys within hours, which is why a rapid rise does not translate into lasting benefit for well-nourished adults.

What is in a Myers' cocktail?

A Myers’ cocktail classically combines magnesium, calcium, several B vitamins (including B12, B6, thiamine and B5) and vitamin C in a base of sterile saline. Clinics often add zinc, glutathione or extra B12. Amounts vary by provider, which complicates research comparisons. Every ingredient is also available in food and ordinary oral supplements, and a deficiency of any of them can be confirmed with a routine blood test.

What is IV vitamin infusion used for medically?

In hospitals, intravenous vitamins and minerals treat documented deficiencies when the gut cannot absorb them or when correction is urgent: thiamine for suspected Wernicke’s encephalopathy, magnesium or potassium for severe depletion affecting heart rhythm, nutrients for patients on parenteral feeding, and fluids for significant dehydration. Each use begins with a diagnosis or emergency, not a menu, and is given under monitoring by the treating team.

What are the disadvantages of IV drip therapy?

The main disadvantages are vein inflammation, bruising, infection at the site or in the bloodstream, fluid overload in people with heart or kidney disease, kidney stone risk from high-dose vitamin C, and reactions to individual ingredients. The quieter cost is delay: treating fatigue or frequent colds with a drip can postpone the blood tests that would have identified anemia, thyroid disease or sleep apnea.

What should I do before getting an IV?

Talk to your own doctor first about heart, kidney or blood pressure conditions, kidney stones, G6PD deficiency, pregnancy and current medications. Ask the provider who places the cannula, who supervises, where the bags were prepared and what their plan is for an allergic reaction. Expect a health history and blood pressure check before starting. Eat normally, hydrate, and keep a written record of what was infused.

Does IV vitamin therapy work for hangovers?

Saline will correct the dehydrated portion of a hangover faster than drinking water, which is why some people feel better mid-bag. The rest of a hangover, driven by acetaldehyde, inflammation, poor sleep and low blood sugar, is not addressed by fluid or vitamins, and no randomized trial supports drips for this purpose. Mayo Clinic lists time, water, bland food and rest as the supported measures.

Is IV vitamin therapy safe for healthy people?

For a healthy adult with normal kidneys and heart, a single infusion administered by a trained nurse using pharmacy-prepared sterile products carries a low risk of serious harm. The risk is not zero: phlebitis, infiltration and infection can follow any cannula, and contaminated compounded injectables have caused documented outbreaks. Safety depends more on who prepares and gives the drip than on the vitamins inside it.

Can a Myers' cocktail help with fatigue?

There is no randomized evidence that a Myers’ cocktail improves fatigue in people without a measured deficiency. Persistent tiredness has many causes, including iron deficiency, thyroid disease, sleep apnea, depression and diabetes, each with specific tests and treatments. If B12 or another nutrient is genuinely low, an oral supplement corrects it in most cases; the decision about route belongs with the clinician who ordered the tests.

How often can you get IV vitamin therapy?

No evidence-based schedule exists for wellness infusions, because no trial has shown benefit from which a frequency could be derived. Repeated cannulation raises the cumulative risk of vein damage and infection, and repeated high-dose vitamin C adds oxalate exposure. Anyone considering regular drips should ask a clinician whether a measurable deficiency exists; if it does not, there is no physiological reason for a repeat.

Is IV vitamin therapy better than oral supplements?

Only when the gut cannot do its job. For people with pernicious anemia, malabsorption or an inability to keep fluids down, intravenous or injected nutrients are essential and well evidenced. For everyone else, oral supplements and food raise and maintain levels effectively, with fewer risks. Trials in B12-deficient patients found high-dose oral tablets normalized blood levels comparably to injections, which illustrates the general principle.

This article is for general information only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please consult a qualified doctor about your individual situation.