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Optimize Me
Holiday Hangovers Are Here. Time to Schedule an IV Drip?
You could shell out $200 for an IV drip of electrolytes, or you could spend $2 on a Gatorade
Optimize Me is an Elemental column exploring (and fact-checking) the weirdest self-improvement trends. It comes out every Tuesday.
Had a late night at the company holiday party? Feel a tickle in your throat and worried it’s the flu? Or are you suffering from the classic celebrity affliction of “exhaustion”? Hook up your vein to a banana bag, baby, and you’ll feel better in no time!
Concierge IV treatments are among the most extravagant wellness trends of the past few years. For anywhere from $100 to $400, a nurse will come to your home, office, or hotel room to deliver a saline solution full of electrolytes, vitamin supplements, and, occasionally, prescription medications — like an anti-nausea drug — straight into your veins. While these treatments are most often marketed as a miracle hangover cure, companies peddling them also claim they can provide relief for jet lag, colds, flu, and food poisoning, as well as boost energy, improve athletic performance, and “beautify yourself from within.”
Adam Nadelson, MD, a plastic surgeon and CEO of the IV Doc, started his company in 2013, when he was a surgical resident and a bout of food poisoning laid him out. He was scheduled to operate that evening, so a nurse gave him an IV to help him recover. “I literally felt worlds better instantaneously,” Nadelson says. “The following day, I set up a website.”
According to Sam Shen, MD, an emergency medicine doctor at Stanford who is not involved in the IV industry, the only reason someone would need an intravenous infusion is if they were in Nadelson’s position and were vomiting and had diarrhea — a lot of it. “There’s a certain amount of blood and volume in the human body, and if you were to lose some of that fluid, whether it’s through vomiting, diarrhea, fever, bleeding… then it makes sense to replace that with intravenous fluid,” Shen says. “[If] you are not in a state where you’ve lost fluid, then just adding fluid to your body, I don’t believe it to be helpful. The reason is your body will just pee it out.”
