How Does Meth Change Your Mood

Meth is a powerful stimulant, and mood is one of the first things it disturbs. People often talk about meth in terms of energy, because it can make a person feel wide awake and full of drive for a short time. What gets less attention is what happens to feelings after that short time passes. Mood does not stay steady when meth is used again and again. It rises sharply, then falls hard, then becomes harder to predict from one day to the next. Over weeks and months, that pattern can change how a person feels about ordinary life, how they react to small problems, and how they get along with the people around them.

This article explains, in plain words, how meth changes mood: what happens in the brain when the drug takes effect, why the lift is always followed by a crash, why irritability and anxiety grow, why low mood can settle in and stay, and why ordinary pleasures can start to feel flat. It is general information only, not individual medical advice. It does not tell anyone how to use meth, and it does not offer treatment for any one person. If you are worried about yourself or someone close to you, a qualified health professional is the right person to talk to.

What Meth Does in the Brain First

To understand mood changes, it helps to understand what meth does inside the brain. The brain runs on chemical messengers, and one of the most important for mood and reward is dopamine. Dopamine is involved in feeling pleasure, feeling motivated, and learning what is worth doing again. When something good happens in ordinary life, like finishing a task, eating a meal you enjoy, or spending time with someone you like, dopamine rises a little, and the brain notes that the experience was rewarding. Meth pushes this system far beyond its normal range. It causes a large, sudden release of dopamine and also blocks the brain from clearing it away quickly, so the signal stays strong for longer than it should.

That flood is why the first effect can feel so intense. A person may feel unusually confident, talkative, energetic and pleased with themselves, even when nothing in their life has actually changed. Problems that felt heavy an hour earlier may suddenly feel small. The brain, however, is not built to run at that level. It reacts to the flood by pulling back. Receptors that respond to dopamine become less sensitive, and the brain produces less of its own dopamine between uses. This is not a small adjustment. It is the brain trying to protect itself from a signal that is far too strong, and the cost of that protection is felt later, when the drug wears off and ordinary life has to be faced with a dulled reward system.

Other chemical messengers are affected too, including noradrenaline, which is linked with alertness and the body’s stress response, and serotonin, which plays a part in mood, sleep and appetite. When several of these systems are pushed at once, the result is not a simple feeling of happiness. It is a state of high arousal mixed with restlessness, tension and a reduced ability to judge situations calmly. The person may feel both wired and on edge, both full of energy and unable to settle. That combination explains a great deal of what follows, because a brain that is overstimulated and then depleted does not return to normal quickly. It swings between extremes, and mood swings with it.

It is also important to say that meth does not create a new personality. It changes the conditions under which the existing person has to function. Someone who is normally patient may find patience much harder when their brain is depleted and their sleep is broken. Someone who is normally even-tempered may snap at a small delay when their stress system is already running high. The changes are real, and they are caused by what the drug does to brain chemistry, but they are not a sign that the person underneath has vanished. Understanding that difference matters, because it keeps the focus on the harm the drug causes, rather than on blaming the person for feeling what a disrupted brain makes them feel.

The Lift and the Crash

The most familiar pattern with meth is the lift followed by the crash, and it is worth describing carefully because it explains so much of the mood damage. During the lift, which can last for hours, a person may feel euphoric, confident and full of energy. Ordinary tasks can feel exciting. Conversation can feel easy. The future can feel bright. This is not because life has improved. It is because the brain’s reward signal is running at a level that everyday life can never match. The lift feels like proof that the drug helps, and that feeling is powerful, especially for someone who was feeling low, tired or stressed before they used it.

The crash begins as the drug leaves the system and dopamine falls. Because the brain has pulled back its own supply and dulled its receptors, the fall does not stop at normal. It drops below normal, into a state where very little feels rewarding at all. Food tastes dull. Rest does not refresh. Company feels like effort. Small tasks feel heavy. This low state can last for hours or days, depending on how much was used, how often, and how rested and fed the person was beforehand. During the crash, mood is not just a little lower. It can feel empty, grey and hopeless, and the memory of the lift is still fresh, which makes the contrast sharper and harder to bear.

Over time, the pattern tightens. The lift becomes shorter and less satisfying, because the brain has adapted and needs more stimulation to produce the same feeling, while the crash becomes longer and deeper, because the brain has less of its own dopamine to fall back on. A person may then use again not to feel good, but simply to escape the crash and feel normal for a while. That shift matters a great deal. When use is driven by the need to avoid feeling terrible, rather than by the wish to feel wonderful, mood is no longer under the person’s control in the way it was before. The drug sets the timetable, and feelings follow it.

This cycle also makes it hard to learn from experience in the normal way. In ordinary life, a person learns that rest helps tiredness, that food helps hunger, and that talking to a friend helps loneliness. In the meth cycle, the lesson the brain keeps learning is that the drug relieves the low feeling, even though the drug itself caused that low feeling in the first place. Breaking that loop is difficult precisely because the relief is real in the moment, even though the overall pattern is making mood worse week by week. Anyone trying to understand why a person keeps returning to meth needs to see this trap clearly, because it is not about weakness or a lack of will. It is about a brain that has been taught, again and again, that the fastest way out of a terrible low is the very thing that created it.

Irritability and Anger Grow

One of the earliest mood changes that other people notice is irritability. A person who used to let small frustrations pass may start reacting sharply to things that would once have seemed minor: a delayed bus, a slow queue, a question asked twice, a plan that changes at the last minute. The reaction is often out of proportion to the event, and the person may regret it afterwards, but in the moment the feeling arrives fast and feels hard to hold back. This is not simply a bad temper appearing from nowhere. It is what happens when the brain’s stress system is running high, sleep is short, and the reward system is depleted all at the same time.

Sleep plays a large part here. Meth keeps a person awake for long stretches, sometimes through the night, and the sleep that follows is often shallow and broken. A brain that has not slept properly is far less able to manage frustration. Research on sleep and mood in general shows the same pattern in people who do not use drugs: after a poor night, patience is thinner, small problems feel bigger, and emotional reactions are stronger. With meth, that sleep loss is repeated again and again, so the irritability is not a one-day problem. It becomes a regular feature of daily life, and the people closest to the user feel it first.

Anger can also grow from the constant state of arousal that meth creates. Noradrenaline raises heart rate and blood pressure and puts the body into a state that is ready for threat, even when there is no real danger. In that state, an ordinary remark can feel like a challenge, and a neutral expression can feel like criticism. The person is not imagining the feeling; the feeling is real. But the judgement behind it is distorted by a body that is already on high alert. This is why arguments can start so quickly and escalate so fast, and why a person may later struggle to explain what made them so angry. At the time, the threat felt genuine, even though the trigger was small.

Over months, repeated anger takes its own toll on mood. A person who snaps at family, friends or workmates may then feel guilt and shame, which lowers mood further. Relationships become strained, trust wears thin, and the person may withdraw to avoid more conflict, which increases loneliness. Loneliness then feeds back into low mood, and low mood makes irritability worse. It is a loop, and each turn makes the next one more likely. Breaking it requires more than deciding to be calmer, because the underlying causes — depleted brain chemistry, broken sleep, and a stress system stuck on high — are still there, and they need time and support to settle.

Anxiety Moves In and Stays

Anxiety is another common mood change linked with meth, and it can appear in several forms. Some people feel a general, restless worry that does not attach to any one thing: a sense that something is wrong, that something bad is about to happen, or that they cannot sit still. Others develop sharper fears, such as worry about being watched, judged or harmed, or panic-like feelings with a racing heart, shaking hands and difficulty breathing. These feelings are frightening, and they can make ordinary places — a crowded shop, a bus, a workplace — feel unsafe.

Part of the reason is chemical. A stimulant that raises arousal also raises the body’s alarm signals, and when those signals stay high for hours, the brain starts to treat normal uncertainty as danger. A delayed reply to a message can feel like rejection. A stranger’s glance can feel like suspicion. A normal sound at night can feel like a threat. The person knows, in a calmer moment, that these fears may be exaggerated, but in the moment they feel real, because the body is sending the same signals it would send if danger were genuinely present. That mismatch between what the mind knows and what the body feels is deeply unsettling, and it can make a person lose trust in their own judgement.

Sleep loss makes anxiety worse, just as it makes irritability worse. A tired brain is worse at telling real threats from imagined ones, and worse at calming itself down once worry starts. Poor appetite adds to the problem, because a body that is short of food and rest has fewer resources to manage stress. Over time, a person may start avoiding the situations that trigger anxiety, staying at home, avoiding crowds, or cutting off contact with friends. Avoidance brings short-term relief, but it shrinks life, and a smaller life gives anxiety more room to grow. The person ends up more isolated, more watchful, and more afraid, not because the world has become more dangerous, but because their ability to cope with it has been worn down.

In some cases, anxiety after meth use can become severe enough to include suspicious thoughts that are hard to shake, sometimes called paranoia. A person may become convinced that others are talking about them, following them, or planning to harm them, even when there is no evidence for it. This is a serious harm, and it can put the person and those around them at risk, because decisions made under such fear are often poor ones. If someone shows this kind of thinking, it is important that they get help from a health professional promptly, rather than being argued with or dismissed. The fear feels real to them, and it needs a careful, professional response, not a debate.

Sadness That Settles In

Low mood is often the longest-lasting change, and it is also the one that is easiest to miss from the outside. Unlike anger or panic, sadness does not always announce itself. A person may simply become quieter, slower, and less interested in the things that used to matter. They may stop replying to messages, stop making plans, and stop looking forward to anything. To friends and family, it can look like laziness or indifference. From the inside, it often feels like heaviness: getting out of bed takes effort, making a meal feels like too much, and the day stretches ahead with nothing in it to look forward to.

The chemistry behind this is the same depletion described earlier. When dopamine is low and receptors are dulled, the brain struggles to register reward from ordinary life. A good meal, a walk in fresh air, a conversation with a friend — all of these depend on the brain’s ability to notice pleasure and mark it as worthwhile. When that ability is weakened, life can feel grey even when nothing terrible has happened. The person is not choosing to be ungrateful or negative. Their brain is temporarily less able to feel the good in things, and that makes it very hard to pull themselves out of the low mood by willpower alone.

This low mood can also be deepened by the losses that meth use brings. Money spent on the drug leaves less for food, rent and bills, and financial worry is a powerful source of sadness and stress. Missed work and broken promises damage self-respect, and a person may start to see themselves as someone who always lets people down. That self-image then makes the next low mood worse, because it feels like proof that things will never improve. It is important to be clear that this sadness is not a character flaw. It is the result of brain chemistry, exhaustion, and real-life losses combining together, and it deserves to be treated seriously, not dismissed as a passing feeling that will lift on its own.

Anyone who feels persistently low, hopeless, or unable to enjoy anything for more than a couple of weeks should talk to a health professional, and anyone who has thoughts of harming themselves should seek help urgently. These feelings can be a sign that mood has been seriously affected, and they are not something to face alone. A doctor can assess the situation properly and discuss what support is available. This article cannot do that, but it can say clearly that low mood linked with meth use is common, it is understandable given what the drug does to the brain, and it is a reason to seek help, not a reason to feel ashamed.

Feeling Flat When Joy Fades

Closely linked with sadness is a feeling that is harder to describe: flatness. A person may not feel actively sad, but they also do not feel happy, excited, or interested. Life goes on around them, but it feels distant, as though they are watching it through glass. Music that once moved them leaves them cold. A joke that once made them laugh barely registers. A success at work or at home brings no lift. This flatness is sometimes called emotional blunting, and it is one of the most painful effects of long-term stimulant use, because it takes away the very feelings that make life worth living.

The reason is again the dulled reward system. When the brain has been flooded with dopamine again and again, ordinary levels of stimulation no longer register. It is similar to what happens with loud noise: after standing next to a speaker at full volume, normal conversation sounds faint. The brain has turned down its own sensitivity to protect itself, and the price is that everyday pleasures become too quiet to hear. A person in this state may use meth again simply to feel something, anything, rather than nothing, and that can look from the outside like a search for pleasure, when from the inside it is a search for feeling itself.

Flatness also affects relationships in a quiet way. A partner may notice that the person no longer responds with warmth, no longer asks about their day, and no longer shares excitement or sorrow. Children may notice that a parent is present in the room but absent in feeling. Friends may notice that conversations have become one-sided and dull. These changes hurt, and they are often misunderstood as coldness or rejection, when in fact the person may still care deeply but be unable to express it in the way they once did. That misunderstanding can lead to distance and arguments, which deepen the isolation that feeds the flatness further.

Recovery from flatness is usually slow, because the brain needs time to restore its sensitivity to normal rewards. That time is measured in weeks and months, not days, and during it a person may feel that nothing is improving. This is one of the reasons support matters so much. Someone who understands that flatness is a known effect of the drug, and that it can ease gradually when use stops and the body gets rest, food and routine, is more likely to keep going through the flat weeks than someone who believes they have permanently lost the ability to feel joy. Patience is not a cure on its own, but it is part of the conditions under which the brain can recover.

Mood Swings and Unpredictability

When the lift, the crash, irritability, anxiety and flatness all exist in the same person, the result is often unpredictability. Mood can change quickly, without an obvious cause, and the people around the user may feel they never know which version of the person they will meet. In the morning, the person may be withdrawn and tearful. By the afternoon, they may be restless and talkative. By the evening, they may be angry over a small thing. The next day may be entirely different again. This instability is exhausting for everyone involved, and it makes planning almost impossible.

Part of the unpredictability comes from the drug itself, because mood follows the rise and fall of meth in the body. Part comes from sleep, because a person who has not slept for a night and a day will feel very different after a long sleep than before it. Part comes from food, because hunger and low blood sugar affect mood in everyone, and meth suppresses appetite, so meals are often skipped for long periods. When these factors combine, mood becomes a product of chemistry, exhaustion and hunger rather than of what is actually happening in life, and that is why it can seem to change for no reason.

For families, this unpredictability is often the hardest part to live with. A partner may try to be supportive during a low period, only to be met with anger the next day. A parent may arrange help, only to find the person has changed their mind. A friend may offer to meet, only to be ignored. Over time, people around the user may start to withdraw, not because they do not care, but because they are tired of being hurt by sudden changes they cannot predict or control. That withdrawal then increases the user’s isolation, which worsens mood further. It is a painful cycle, and breaking it usually requires the mood itself to become more stable first, which in turn requires the drug use, sleep and eating patterns to settle.

It is worth saying plainly that mood swings linked with meth are not the same as simply being moody. Everyone has good days and bad days, and everyone is sometimes irritable when tired. What meth adds is a chemical driver that pushes mood far beyond its normal range, in both directions, and does so repeatedly. The swings are larger, faster, and less connected to real events than ordinary mood changes. Recognising that difference helps families understand that they are not dealing with a personality problem that can be fixed by trying harder, but with a drug effect that needs time, support and professional help to ease.

My Take:

I want to start with the thing that struck me most while reading about meth and mood, which is how quickly a short feeling turns into a long problem. The lift sounds, from the outside, like the whole story: energy, confidence, a sense of being on top of things. But the lift is the smallest part of the story. The crash, the irritability, the anxiety, the flat weeks — those are the parts that fill most of a person’s life, and they are the parts that do the lasting damage. If anyone is weighing up whether meth is worth it, I think they need to weigh the whole pattern, not just the hours when it feels good, because the hours when it feels terrible are far more numerous, and they do not stay contained. They spill into work, into family life, into sleep, and into the way a person sees themselves.

I also think the mood story is often told backwards. People say that someone uses meth because they are unhappy, and sometimes that is true. But it is just as true that meth makes people unhappy, in a direct, chemical way, by draining the very system the brain uses to feel pleasure and motivation. That matters, because it means the drug is not a solution to low mood, even when it feels like one for a few hours. It is a cause of low mood, and the more it is used to escape low mood, the deeper the low mood becomes. I find that tragic, because the person is reaching for relief and getting the opposite, and the brain keeps telling them that the next use will fix what the last use broke. Breaking that belief is, in my view, the most important step, and it is also the hardest, because the belief is backed by a real, immediate feeling of relief each time.

The irritability and anger worry me a great deal, not because I think people who use meth are bad people, but because anger does so much damage to relationships, and relationships are exactly what a person needs in order to recover. A person who snaps at their partner, their parent or their child may not mean the words, but the words still land, and they still leave a mark. Over time, the people who care most can become afraid to speak honestly, or tired of being hurt, and they step back. Then the person who uses meth is left more alone, with fewer people to turn to, and the loneliness makes the mood worse. I think anyone who wants to help needs to see this loop clearly, because fixing the mood and fixing the relationships are not separate jobs. They are the same job, and they both depend on the drug use stopping and on mood having time to settle.

Anxiety is the part I keep coming back to, because it is so lonely. A person who is anxious because of meth may feel afraid in their own home, suspicious of people who love them, and unable to explain why they feel that way. That is a frightening place to be, and it is made worse by the fact that other people cannot see the fear. They see the behaviour — the avoidance, the suspicion, the restlessness — and they may judge it, when what the person actually needs is someone to take the fear seriously and help them get professional support. I would urge anyone who notices this kind of fear in themselves or in someone else not to dismiss it or argue with it, but to talk to a health professional promptly. Fear that is driven by a drug effect is still real fear, and it deserves a careful response.

I am also struck by how much of the mood damage comes not from the drug alone, but from what the drug does to sleep and food. That is both bad news and, in a strange way, hopeful news. It is bad news because it means the harm is wider than most people realise: it is not just brain chemistry, it is exhaustion, hunger and physical strain all feeding into mood at once. It is hopeful because sleep and food are things that can be worked on, day by day, in practical ways. A regular bedtime, a simple meal, a walk in daylight — none of these will fix a damaged reward system on their own, but they give the brain the conditions it needs to recover, and they are steps that a person can take even when their mood feels too low for bigger changes. I think that practical, unglamorous side of recovery deserves more attention than it usually gets.

Flatness is the effect I find hardest to write about, because it is so quiet. Sadness at least has a feeling to it. Flatness is the absence of feeling, and it can make a person wonder whether they have lost something essential in themselves. I want to say clearly that flatness after meth use is a known effect, it has a chemical explanation, and it does not mean a person is permanently broken or incapable of joy. The brain turned down its sensitivity to protect itself, and sensitivity can return, slowly, when the flooding stops. That slowness is painful, and I will not pretend otherwise. Weeks of feeling nothing can feel endless. But I have read enough about recovery to believe that the return of small pleasures — enjoying a meal, laughing at something ordinary, looking forward to a visit — is a real sign that the brain is healing, and it is worth waiting for.

I think families need more honest information about all of this, because they are often left to cope without understanding what is happening. A partner who knows that irritability comes from exhaustion and depleted chemistry, rather than from hatred, can respond differently. A parent who knows that flatness is a drug effect, rather than indifference, can keep showing up even when the response is cold. That knowledge does not excuse hurtful behaviour, and it does not mean families should accept being harmed. But it does mean they can make clearer decisions about boundaries, about when to step back, and about when to seek help, instead of blaming themselves or the person they love for something neither of them fully understands. If this article helps one family have a calmer, clearer conversation, then it has done something useful.

My view on recovery is simple, and I will not dress it up: it takes time, it is uneven, and it needs support. I do not believe in quick fixes for mood after meth use, because the brain does not heal on a timetable that suits our impatience. What I do believe is that stopping use, sleeping properly, eating regularly, and having people around who understand the process gives the brain its best chance. I also believe that professional help matters, especially when low mood is deep, anxiety is severe, or thoughts of self-harm appear. Those are not signs of failure. They are signs that the harm is serious and that expert help is the right response, just as it would be for any other serious health problem.

Finally, I want to speak directly to anyone who is reading this and recognising their own mood in it. You are not a bad person for feeling what meth has made you feel. The anger, the fear, the sadness and the flatness are effects of a powerful drug on a human brain, and they are effects that many other people have experienced too. That does not make them unimportant, and it does not mean you should simply accept them. It means you deserve honest information, proper support, and time to recover, and that asking for help is not a sign of weakness. If you can take one step — telling a health professional, telling someone you trust, or contacting a support service — then take it. Mood can improve, slowly and unevenly, but it improves most reliably when the drug stops flooding the brain and the body is given a chance to rest, to eat, and to heal.

I also think about the long term more than the short term now, because the short term is misleading. A few hours of feeling confident can hide months of feeling low, and a person can lose a surprising amount of ground in those months: a job that becomes hard to keep, a friendship that cools, savings that disappear, a home that becomes tense. None of those losses happens in a single dramatic moment. They happen quietly, one missed day and one sharp word at a time, and by the time the person notices how much has changed, the distance back feels very long. That is why I think early honesty matters so much. The sooner someone sees the whole pattern, the sooner they can ask for help, and the less there is to rebuild later. Waiting for a crisis to force the issue is a poor plan, because a crisis usually means more damage has already been done.

Sleep and food deserve a final word from me, because they are so often treated as minor details when they are actually central. A brain that has not slept cannot manage mood properly, and a body that has not eaten cannot supply the energy mood needs. I know that telling someone who is struggling with meth to sleep well and eat regularly can sound too simple, almost dismissive. I do not mean it that way. I mean that recovery is built from ordinary, repeated acts of care for the body, and that those acts are not a distraction from the real work. They are the real work, at least in the early weeks. A person who is sleeping through the night and eating three simple meals a day is giving their brain a genuine chance to steady itself, and that chance is worth protecting, even when progress feels slow.

I want to end my own view with something practical for families, because they are often the people reading articles like this one. If you love someone whose mood has changed because of meth, you do not have to fix their brain chemistry, and you cannot do it by arguing or by loving them harder. What you can do is learn what is happening, keep your own boundaries clear, and help them reach a health professional when they are ready. You can also look after yourself, because living with someone whose mood swings unpredictably is exhausting, and you will not be able to help anyone if you are exhausted yourself. Talking to a support service for families, even once, can make a real difference. It can help you tell the difference between behaviour you should challenge and symptoms you should understand, and that clarity is a kindness to everyone involved, including yourself.

One last thought stays with me, and it is about hope. I do not offer hope as a slogan, because slogans have never helped anyone whose brain chemistry is depleted, whose sleep is broken, and whose days feel flat and grey. Real hope is quieter than a slogan, and it is built on small, steady steps rather than on grand promises. I offer it as a plain observation: the brain that meth disrupts is the same brain that can, given time without the drug, rest and regular food, slowly become steadier again. I have no right to promise any one person a particular outcome, and I will not do so. But I can say that the pattern described in this article is not a life sentence written in stone. It is a description of harm, and harm that is understood clearly is harm that can be faced clearly, with help, with patience, and with the support of people who refuse to look away. That is the thought I want to leave you with: understanding is not a cure on its own, but it is the ground on which every better step stands, and it is available to anyone willing to read, to listen, and to ask for help when the time comes.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does Meth affect mood?

Meth disturbs mood by flooding the brain with dopamine and other chemical messengers, which creates a short lift followed by a crash below normal. After repeated use, the brain produces less of its own dopamine and becomes less sensitive to it, so ordinary pleasures feel dull and mood becomes unstable. Irritability, anxiety, low mood and flatness are all common results of this disruption, and they tend to grow worse the longer use continues.

How soon can Meth start harming mood?

Mood can change within hours of first use, because the lift is always followed by a crash as the drug wears off. Sleep loss, which often starts on the first night of use, can make irritability and anxiety worse the next day. Longer-lasting changes, such as persistent low mood and a dulled sense of pleasure, usually build over weeks and months of repeated use, as the brain adapts to the repeated flooding of its reward system.

Can the harm Meth does to mood be reversed?

Some effects, such as broken sleep and low energy, can improve relatively quickly when use stops and the body gets rest and regular food. Deeper changes, such as a dulled sense of pleasure, anxiety and low mood, usually take much longer to ease, and some changes may not fully reverse. Whether the harm can be reversed depends on what has been damaged and for how long, and no general article can answer that for any one person. A qualified health professional can assess an individual situation.

Who notices the harm of Meth on mood first?

Family members and close friends often notice the harm first, because they see the small daily changes in temper, sleep, appetite and reliability. Colleagues and teachers may also notice, in missed days, shorter patience and work that is no longer steady. The person using meth may be the last to see it, since the brain adapts to the pattern and the change feels normal from inside, and the lift can mask how low mood has become between uses.

What makes the harm of Meth to mood worse?

Using meth more often, in larger amounts or over a longer time generally increases the harm, because the body gets less chance to recover between uses. Poor sleep, skipped meals and existing health problems can also make the harm worse, because the body is already under strain. Mixing meth with other substances can multiply the danger, especially for the heart, breathing and mental state, and stressful life events can make mood swings harder to manage.

Where can I read reliable information about Meth and mood?

Reliable general information about meth can be found from public health authorities such as NIDA, the NHS, the WHO, the CDC and the DEA, listed in the sources below. For questions about a specific person, the right step is a conversation with a qualified health professional, not an article. Those sources explain harms, risks and patterns of use in plain language, without selling anything or offering personal advice.

Sources

This article is general information only. It is not personal medical advice. For questions about a specific person, speak with a qualified health professional.