Why Low Testosterone Is Confirmed With Two Morning Blood Tests Before Treatment Begins

The result came back on a Thursday afternoon, and the number sat just under the line the lab printed beside it. He had expected relief, or at least an explanation for the tiredness and the flat libido that had shadowed the last year. Instead, the message from the clinic said: please book another blood draw, early morning, nothing to eat beforehand. His first thought was that someone had lost the sample.

Nobody had. That second appointment is the quiet center of a proper testosterone deficiency diagnosis, and the reason for it is not bureaucratic caution. Testosterone is one of the most restless numbers in the body. It rises while you sleep, falls across the working day, sags when you are ill, and can look low for a week after a bad run of nights.

Treating on the strength of one snapshot means committing a person to a therapy that is usually long term, suppresses their own hormone production and can close the door on fertility. Two careful measurements are the minimum that makes that decision honest.

What is a testosterone deficiency diagnosis, and why is one test never enough?

Doctors use the word hypogonadism for a state in which the testes make too little testosterone, too few sperm, or both. A testosterone deficiency diagnosis, in guideline terms, requires two things at once: symptoms or signs that fit, and blood levels that are unequivocally and repeatedly low when measured in the morning. The Endocrine Society’s clinical practice guideline, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism and indexed on PubMed, states that the diagnosis should be made only in men who have both, and that the low level should be confirmed on at least two separate occasions.

Why the insistence on repetition? Because a hormone reading is a photograph of a moving target. The guideline authors note that roughly 30 percent of men whose first result falls in the mildly low range turn out to have a normal level when the test is repeated. If every one of those men were treated after a single draw, nearly a third of a clinic’s new patients would be taking a lifelong hormone for a problem they may not have.

The stakes on the other side are real too. Testosterone replacement switches off the brain signals that drive the testes, which shrinks sperm production and can cause the testes themselves to soften and shrink. It raises the concentration of red blood cells. It commits a person to blood monitoring for years. Those are reasonable trade-offs for someone with a genuine deficiency, and poor ones for someone whose level was low because of a cold, a night shift or a late lunch.

So the two-test rule is not a hurdle placed between patients and relief. It is the floor beneath a decision that is hard to walk back.

Why a morning testosterone test, and why before breakfast?

Testosterone follows a circadian rhythm, meaning its level rises and falls on a roughly 24-hour cycle tied to sleep and daylight. In younger men the peak arrives in the early morning and the trough in the late afternoon or evening. MedlinePlus, the consumer health service of the US National Library of Medicine, advises that the sample is usually drawn between 7 and 10 a.m. for this reason. A level that is clearly normal at 8 a.m. can read as borderline at 4 p.m. in the same person on the same day.

The reference ranges that labs print beside your result were built from morning samples in healthy men. Comparing an afternoon reading against a morning range is like weighing yourself after dinner and judging the number against a chart designed for fasting weights: the comparison itself introduces error.

Food matters as well. Eating, especially a meal rich in glucose, produces a short-lived dip in testosterone over the following hours. The Endocrine Society guideline therefore recommends that the morning sample be taken in the fasting state. Water is almost always fine; your care team will tell you how long to fast and whether to take your usual medicines beforehand.

Two more conditions distort the picture. Acute illness, even a heavy viral infection, suppresses testosterone for days to weeks, and the guideline advises against testing during or shortly after such an illness. Severe sleep loss does the same. A clinician who hears that you were feverish last week, or finished a run of nights two days ago, will often ask you to postpone rather than record a number that cannot be trusted.

Older men tend to have a flatter daily curve, with less difference between morning and evening. The morning still remains the standard sampling window, because that is what the ranges were built on.

What actually happens on the two testing days

The process is deliberately unremarkable. You arrive early, usually having eaten nothing since the previous evening. A phlebotomist draws one or two small tubes of blood from a vein in the arm; the needle part takes under a minute. Most people are at work afterward with nothing more than a small bruise.

Behind the scenes, the laboratory measures total testosterone, which is the full amount of the hormone in the blood, whether or not it is attached to carrier proteins. Labs use different methods. Immunoassays, which detect the hormone with antibodies, are common and reasonably reliable at normal levels but less precise at the low end. Mass spectrometry, which identifies molecules by weight, is the reference method. The Endocrine Society guideline recommends an accurate and reliable assay, ideally one standardized against the CDC’s hormone standardization program, and encourages using the same laboratory for both draws so that two numbers are truly comparable.

The second test happens on a different day. The guideline does not fix an exact gap; what matters is that the two samples are separate mornings under similar conditions. In practice clinicians often space them a week or a few weeks apart, long enough that a passing illness or a bad week of sleep would not color both.

If the first total testosterone sits close to the lower limit, or if you have a condition known to alter carrier proteins, your team may add a free testosterone measurement or a sex hormone binding globulin level to the second draw. More on that distinction below.

Then comes the part people underestimate: a conversation. Results are read alongside your symptoms, your medicines, your sleep, your weight history and your other conditions. Two low numbers plus a story that fits is a diagnosis. Two low numbers plus a story that points elsewhere is a prompt to look elsewhere.

Total versus free testosterone levels: which number actually matters?

Most testosterone in the blood is not free to act. About two thirds rides on a carrier protein called sex hormone binding globulin, or SHBG, which holds it so tightly that tissues cannot use it. Most of the rest is loosely attached to albumin, and only a sliver, typically under 3 percent according to Cleveland Clinic’s overview of male hypogonadism, floats unattached as free testosterone. Free plus albumin-bound together are sometimes called bioavailable testosterone.

Total testosterone is the first-line test because it is the most standardized and the easiest to interpret. The Endocrine Society guideline advises measuring free testosterone only when total is near the lower limit of normal or when SHBG is likely to be abnormal. Obesity and type 2 diabetes push SHBG down, so a man with a high body weight can show a low total yet a perfectly adequate free level. Aging, liver disease, an overactive thyroid and some medicines push SHBG up, which can hide a genuine deficiency behind a normal total.

How free testosterone is measured matters enormously. The gold standard is equilibrium dialysis, a laborious laboratory technique. An acceptable alternative is a calculated free testosterone, derived from total testosterone, SHBG and albumin using a validated formula. The guideline specifically cautions against direct analog immunoassays for free testosterone, the kind that appear on many direct-to-consumer panels, because they are inaccurate.

This is why a free testosterone result from an online wellness panel can send someone to a clinic convinced they are deficient, only to find that properly measured total and calculated free levels are normal. The number was real; the method was not reliable enough to carry a diagnosis. When in doubt, ask which method your laboratory used.

What are low testosterone symptoms, and why can't they confirm the diagnosis alone?

The honest answer is that low testosterone symptoms fall into two groups, and only one of them points with any precision. The more specific features, as described by the Endocrine Society and Cleveland Clinic, involve sexual function and the testes: a clear drop in sexual desire, fewer or absent spontaneous morning erections, difficulty with erections, loss of body or facial hair, breast tissue enlargement, small or shrinking testes, and reduced sperm counts in men being investigated for infertility. Hot flushes, which most people associate with menopause, can occur when testosterone is very low.

The second group is broader and far more common in the general population: tiredness, low mood, poor concentration, less muscle, more abdominal fat, disturbed sleep, and a vague sense of having lost drive. These are real and they matter, but they overlap heavily with depression, obstructive sleep apnea, an underactive thyroid, poorly controlled diabetes, chronic pain, excess alcohol, and the side effects of common medicines. Harvard Health has pointed out that many men who seek testing have symptoms that would be explained just as well by one of these.

The NHS makes a similar point in its page on the so-called male menopause: in most men the mix of low energy, mood change and reduced libido in middle age has causes other than hormone deficiency, and testosterone falls only gradually, by less than 2 percent a year from around the age of 30 to 40.

That is why guidelines treat symptoms as necessary but not sufficient. They justify ordering the blood tests. They do not replace them, and no questionnaire, however detailed, can stand in for two fasting morning draws read by someone who knows your history. If this list sounds like you, the right move is a conversation with a clinician, not a self-assessment.

Who is usually offered testing, and who is asked to wait

Guidelines are clear that testosterone is not a screening test for the general adult male population. The Endocrine Society recommends against measuring it in men who have no symptoms, because the chance of a misleading result outweighs the chance of finding treatable disease. Testing is offered when the clinical picture suggests deficiency, and it is actively considered in groups where deficiency is common even without classic complaints.

Those groups include men with disease of the pituitary gland, the pea-sized structure at the base of the brain that sends the hormonal signals telling the testes to work; men with infertility; men with unexplained osteoporosis or low-impact fractures; men living with HIV who have lost weight; men on long-term opioid pain medicines or high-dose glucocorticoid steroids, both of which suppress the hormonal axis; men with certain genetic conditions affecting the testes; and men with type 2 diabetes who have suggestive symptoms.

Equally important is who is asked to come back later. Anyone who is acutely unwell, recently hospitalized, or recovering from surgery should wait until they have recovered, because illness temporarily lowers testosterone. Someone who has just worked a string of night shifts, or who has slept badly for a week, may be asked to test after a stretch of normal sleep. A person whose symptoms began with a new medicine may be asked to review that medicine first, since removing the cause can remove the need for a diagnosis.

Finally, men who hope to have children soon are not asked to wait for testing, but they are asked to pause before treatment. Replacement testosterone suppresses sperm production, sometimes profoundly, and Mayo Clinic lists reduced fertility among its established effects. For these men, confirming the diagnosis is the beginning of a different conversation about options that protect fertility, which only the treating team can lead.

How clinicians read two morning results: a plain-language summary table

No single number settles the question, but patterns do. The table below describes how two fasting morning total testosterone results are commonly interpreted, drawing on the Endocrine Society guideline’s framework. The harmonized lower limit it cites for healthy young men, roughly 264 ng/dL on a CDC-standardized assay, is one widely used reference point, not a universal law; your laboratory’s own range and your clinician’s judgment take precedence.

Pattern across two morning draws	What it usually suggests	Typical next step
Both clearly within the normal range	Testosterone deficiency is unlikely to explain symptoms	Look for other causes: sleep, mood, thyroid, diabetes, medicines
Both clearly and consistently low, with fitting symptoms	Supports a testosterone deficiency diagnosis	Further blood work to find the cause before any treatment decision
One low, one normal	Inconclusive; the low reading may reflect timing, illness or lab variation	A third fasting morning draw, often with SHBG or free testosterone
Both borderline, near the lower limit	Carrier-protein effects may be masking the true picture	Calculated or dialysis free testosterone; review weight, diabetes, liver, thyroid
Low total but normal free testosterone	Often seen with obesity or low SHBG; tissues may be adequately supplied	Address weight and metabolic health; treatment often not indicated
Very low on both occasions	Raises concern for pituitary or testicular disease	Pituitary hormones, prolactin, iron studies, possibly imaging

Two things are worth drawing out. First, a single low reading sitting beside a normal one is not half a diagnosis; it is a signal that the measurement needs repeating under cleaner conditions. Second, a normal result does not close the door forever. Symptoms that persist or change deserve a fresh look, and the team may revisit testing months later if the story evolves.

What else gets checked before treatment begins

Two low morning levels tell you that testosterone is deficient. They do not tell you why, and the why changes everything about what happens next.

The first follow-up tests are usually luteinizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone, abbreviated LH and FSH. These are the pituitary signals that instruct the testes to make testosterone and sperm. If testosterone is low and LH and FSH are high, the pituitary is shouting and the testes are not answering; clinicians call this primary hypogonadism, and the problem lies in the testes themselves. If testosterone is low and LH and FSH are low or inappropriately normal, the signal itself is weak; this is secondary hypogonadism, and the search moves to the brain, to medicines, and to systemic illness.

In secondary cases, the Endocrine Society guideline recommends measuring prolactin, a pituitary hormone that can be raised by a benign pituitary tumor and that suppresses testosterone when high. Iron studies may be added, because iron overload damages the pituitary. When testosterone is very low or prolactin is elevated, imaging of the pituitary is often arranged.

Safety checks come next. Hematocrit, the proportion of blood made up of red cells, is measured because testosterone raises it and a high value thickens the blood. Prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, a protein released by the prostate, is checked in men within the age range where prostate cancer screening is relevant, along with a prostate examination, since testosterone can accelerate an existing prostate cancer. The team also asks about sleep apnea, heart disease, blood clots and breast cancer history, and may arrange a bone density scan if deficiency appears long-standing.

Cleveland Clinic and Mayo Clinic both list these pre-treatment steps as routine. None of them is optional padding; each one shapes whether, and how, treatment should be considered.

Can low testosterone cause weight gain, or is it the other way around?

Both directions are true, and untangling them is one of the most useful things a careful diagnosis does.

Testosterone helps maintain muscle and limits fat deposition, so when it is genuinely deficient, body composition drifts toward less lean tissue and more fat, particularly around the abdomen. Cleveland Clinic lists increased body fat among the recognized effects of low testosterone, and Mayo Clinic notes that treatment in deficient men can shift muscle mass and fat distribution over time. People in this situation often describe gaining weight despite unchanged habits.

The reverse pathway is at least as powerful. Fat tissue contains an enzyme called aromatase that converts testosterone into estradiol, a form of estrogen; more fat means more conversion. Obesity also lowers SHBG, which pulls down the total testosterone reading even when the free fraction is acceptable. Carrying excess weight increases the risk of obstructive sleep apnea, and fragmented sleep suppresses the overnight testosterone surge. Insulin resistance adds its own dampening effect on the pituitary signal. The result is that many men with obesity have a low total testosterone that is a consequence of their weight rather than a separate disease.

This matters for the diagnostic process in a concrete way. The Endocrine Society guideline specifically flags obesity as a reason to measure free testosterone rather than rely on the total, because the total may be misleadingly low. It also notes that weight loss raises testosterone, and Harvard Health makes the same observation. For a man whose only driver is excess weight, addressing the weight treats the cause; replacement testosterone would treat a number.

None of this is a judgment about anyone’s body. It is a mechanism, and knowing it protects people from a treatment they may not need while pointing toward one that may help in several ways at once.

Can you increase testosterone naturally with food, sleep and exercise?

This is the question behind many online searches, and the evidence deserves a straight answer. No food has been shown to raise testosterone meaningfully in a man who is genuinely deficient. Oysters, eggs, pomegranate and the rest of the usual list appear in marketing far more often than in clinical trials. Harvard Health has reviewed over-the-counter products sold as testosterone boosters and found little convincing evidence that they work, and some carry safety concerns of their own.

What does move the number is less glamorous. Weight loss in men with obesity raises total and free testosterone, partly by reducing aromatase activity and partly by raising SHBG back toward normal; both the Endocrine Society guideline and Cleveland Clinic note this. Treating obstructive sleep apnea restores the overnight hormonal surge that fragmented sleep suppresses. Regular resistance exercise and aerobic activity support muscle mass and metabolic health, which indirectly supports hormone production. Heavy alcohol use suppresses testosterone, so cutting back can help. Reviewing medicines with a prescriber, particularly long-term opioids and glucocorticoids, sometimes reveals a reversible cause.

Two nutrients are worth a specific note. Zinc and vitamin D deficiencies are associated with lower testosterone, and correcting a documented deficiency may help; the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements summarizes the evidence for both. There is no good evidence that taking more of either, when levels are already normal, raises testosterone further.

The realistic framing is this: lifestyle changes can lift a borderline level back into the normal range and can relieve symptoms that were never caused by testosterone at all. They are unlikely to rescue a man whose testes or pituitary have stopped working. A proper diagnosis tells you which situation you are in, and that is exactly why the two-test confirmation matters before anyone reaches for a prescription or a supplement bottle.

What the following weeks and months usually look like if treatment is started

Only the treating team can decide whether treatment is appropriate, and this section describes typical patterns rather than promises. Testosterone replacement comes in several forms, including gels applied to the skin, injections, patches and implanted pellets. Each has a different rhythm of absorption and different practical trade-offs, and the choice is made with the clinician based on preference, other conditions and monitoring needs.

Symptoms do not all respond at the same pace. Mayo Clinic and the Endocrine Society describe sexual desire and mood as among the earlier changes, often noticed within the first weeks to a few months. Changes in energy and concentration tend to follow over a similar window, though they are harder to attribute because so many other factors influence them. Shifts in muscle mass, fat distribution and bone density are slower, unfolding over many months to years. Some symptoms that were never caused by testosterone will not change at all, and that in itself is useful information.

Monitoring is built in from the start. The Endocrine Society guideline recommends reassessing symptoms and checking testosterone levels, hematocrit and, where relevant, PSA at 3–12 months after starting, then yearly. A rising hematocrit is the most common reason to adjust or pause treatment.

Side effects to be aware of include acne or oily skin, breast tenderness or enlargement, fluid retention, worsening of sleep apnea, shrinking of the testes and suppression of sperm production. Mayo Clinic lists these alongside a possible increase in blood clot risk. The relationship between testosterone treatment and cardiovascular events remains an area of ongoing research; large trials have produced reassuring and uncertain findings at different times, and your team will weigh your individual heart health.

Finally, for most men with confirmed deficiency, treatment is long term. Stopping typically allows symptoms to return, which is one more reason the diagnosis has to be solid before the first dose.

What people often get wrong about testosterone deficiency diagnosis

The first misconception is that a single afternoon blood test is enough. It is not, for all the reasons above: wrong time of day, possibly after food, possibly during a bad week. Many men who arrive with one low reading leave with a normal one after a proper fasting morning repeat.

The second is that a free testosterone result from a mail-order panel settles anything. Direct analog free testosterone assays are the method the Endocrine Society guideline explicitly describes as unreliable. The total testosterone on such panels may be sound; the free value often is not.

Third, people assume that feeling tired and flat in middle age equals low testosterone. The NHS, Harvard Health and Cleveland Clinic all make the same point: depression, sleep apnea, thyroid disease, diabetes, alcohol and medicines explain these symptoms far more often than hormone deficiency does. A symptom quiz can raise the question; it cannot answer it.

Fourth is the belief that testosterone falls off a cliff with age. Mayo Clinic puts the typical decline at about 1 percent a year after age 30 or 40, a gradual slope that most men never notice. Age alone is not a diagnosis, and guidelines do not recommend treating healthy older men with modestly lower levels and no clear symptoms.

Fifth, a number inside the reference range is taken to rule deficiency out completely, while a number just below it is taken as proof. Ranges have soft edges, SHBG shifts the total, and labs differ. The pattern across repeated draws, read alongside symptoms and the pituitary hormones, is what counts.

Last, some see testosterone as a fitness or anti-aging tool. In men without deficiency, the evidence for benefit is weak and the risks are real. Guidelines reserve treatment for confirmed hypogonadism, and the two-test rule is the gate that keeps that reservation meaningful.

Questions to ask your care team

A good consultation is a two-way exchange, and arriving with specific questions helps your team tailor the explanation to you. These are the ones patients most often wish they had asked earlier.

• Were both of my samples taken fasting, in the morning, on separate days, at the same laboratory? If not, should one be repeated?
• Which method did the lab use for total testosterone, and if free testosterone was measured, was it calculated or measured by equilibrium dialysis?
• Do my LH and FSH results point to the testes or to the pituitary as the source of the problem, and what does that change about next steps?
• Could any of my current medicines, including pain medicines, steroids or treatments for other conditions, be lowering my testosterone?
• Have other causes of my symptoms, such as sleep apnea, depression, thyroid disease or diabetes, been considered or tested for?
• If weight or metabolic health is contributing, what would you expect to change if I addressed those first, and over what time frame?
• I may want children in the future. How does that affect the choice of treatment, and are there options that protect sperm production?
• What will be monitored, how often, and what results would lead you to adjust or pause treatment?
• What side effects should I watch for, and which ones mean I should contact you straight away?
• If we decide to treat, how will we judge whether it is actually helping, and when would we review whether to continue?

Write the answers down or ask for them in writing. A testosterone deficiency diagnosis unfolds over several visits, and the details from the first conversation will matter at the fourth.

When to call your doctor

Most of the diagnostic process is unhurried, but some findings should not wait for the next scheduled visit. During the investigation phase, contact your doctor promptly if you notice a lump, swelling or persistent pain in a testicle; a new lump or discharge from the breast; a severe or unusual headache, especially with changes in vision such as loss of side vision or double vision, which can signal a pituitary problem; or a fracture after a minor fall or bump, which may indicate weakened bone.

If treatment has been started, seek urgent care for chest pain or pressure, sudden shortness of breath, pain or swelling in one calf or thigh, or coughing up blood, since these can indicate a blood clot in the leg or lung. Sudden weakness or numbness on one side of the body, facial drooping, slurred speech or confusion are signs of stroke and warrant an emergency call. Difficulty passing urine or being unable to pass urine at all needs same-day attention.

Call your care team, rather than emergency services, for persistent headaches with a flushed or dusky complexion, which can accompany a rising hematocrit; noticeably worse snoring, gasping during sleep or new daytime sleepiness, which may mean sleep apnea has worsened; marked mood changes, irritability or low mood; redness, warmth or pus at an injection or pellet site; or any new breast tenderness or enlargement. Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic list these among the effects that should prompt review.

If you are unsure whether a symptom counts, make the call anyway. Your treating team would far rather hear from you about something that turns out to be minor than miss something that was not, and every decision about pausing, adjusting or continuing care rests with them, informed by what you tell them.

Frequently asked questions

Why do I need a morning testosterone test rather than one at any time of day?

Because testosterone peaks in the early morning and falls across the day, so an afternoon reading can look low in a person whose true level is normal. MedlinePlus notes the sample is usually taken between 7 and 10 a.m., and reference ranges were built from morning samples. Fasting before the draw avoids the temporary dip that follows a meal.

What happens if one test is low and the other is normal?

The result is considered inconclusive rather than half a diagnosis. The low reading may reflect timing, recent illness, poor sleep or laboratory variation. Clinicians usually arrange a third fasting morning draw, often adding SHBG or a calculated free testosterone, and review symptoms and medicines again before deciding whether deficiency is present.

What are the signs and symptoms of low testosterone that prompt testing?

The more specific features involve sexual function and the testes: reduced desire, fewer morning erections, erectile difficulty, loss of body hair, breast enlargement, small testes and low sperm counts. Tiredness, low mood and reduced muscle also occur but overlap with many other conditions. Symptoms justify blood testing; they cannot confirm the diagnosis on their own.

How are free testosterone levels different from total testosterone?

Total testosterone counts all hormone in the blood, most of it bound to carrier proteins. Free testosterone is the small unbound fraction available to tissues. Guidelines measure total first and add free testosterone only when the total is borderline or when SHBG may be abnormal, using a calculated value or equilibrium dialysis rather than a direct analog assay.

How can I increase free testosterone without medication?

The evidence supports weight loss in men with obesity, treating sleep apnea, regular resistance and aerobic exercise, limiting alcohol and reviewing medicines such as opioids or steroids with a prescriber. These can raise borderline levels and relieve symptoms with other causes. They are unlikely to correct deficiency caused by testicular or pituitary disease, which is why diagnosis comes first.

Can low testosterone cause weight gain?

It can contribute, because testosterone supports muscle and limits fat storage, so deficiency shifts body composition toward more fat. The reverse is at least as common: excess fat converts testosterone to estrogen and lowers SHBG, producing a low total reading. Guidelines therefore recommend checking free testosterone in men with obesity, and weight loss itself raises levels.

What foods help men increase testosterone levels naturally?

No specific food has been shown to raise testosterone meaningfully in deficient men, and Harvard Health found little evidence that marketed booster supplements work. Correcting a documented zinc or vitamin D deficiency may help, per NIH Office of Dietary Supplements summaries. A balanced diet that supports weight management does more for hormone levels than any single ingredient.

Do home testosterone test kits count toward a testosterone deficiency diagnosis?

Usually not on their own. Saliva kits and finger-prick panels vary in accuracy, and free testosterone values from direct analog assays are considered unreliable by the Endocrine Society guideline. A home result can prompt a conversation, but confirmation requires two fasting morning venous samples at a laboratory using a standardized total testosterone assay.

Does a confirmed low testosterone level mean I will definitely be treated?

No. Confirmation is the start of a second phase in which the cause is sought through LH, FSH, prolactin and other tests, and safety checks such as hematocrit and PSA are completed. Reversible causes, fertility plans and other health conditions all influence the decision, which rests with the treating team rather than with the number alone.

How quickly does testosterone naturally decline with age?

Gradually. Mayo Clinic describes a fall of about 1 percent a year after age 30 or 40, and the NHS puts it at less than 2 percent a year from around the same age. This slow slope rarely causes symptoms by itself, and guidelines do not recommend treating healthy older men whose levels are modestly lower without clear clinical features.

References

• Testosterone Levels Test (MedlinePlus)
• Low Testosterone (Male Hypogonadism) (Cleveland Clinic)
• The 'male menopause' (NHS)

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.