This new trend may not be all you think it is

There’s a trend that’s been bothering me for quite a while, though I almost fell for it.  A midwife I’ve worked with suggests Myers Cocktails for women with severe nausea and vomiting in the first trimester. It’s a costly treatment at over $100 but the midwife claimed it often cured first trimester nausea.

I was skeptical but interested, especially since I suffered greatly with each of my five pregnancies, even becoming suicidal due to the constant nausea and frequent vomiting. If there was a cure, I wanted to be able to prescribe it!

So I did some research before asking my doctor to put it in my Standing Orders. I was surprised to find there is no evidence that this vitamin concoction does anything at all for hangovers or illness, much less pregnancy induced nausea and vomiting, so I put the idea aside.

Soon I saw local IV therapy shops opening up and my interest was piqued again. One of my daughters was exploring career options and was interested in phlebotomy so we looked at a job in the IV therapy business. The licensure and other details look puzzling to me. The one with the medical license buying the IVs is not the one deciding who gets IV or even onsite when someone gets an IV. This isn’t unusual in the medical world, I’m just curious about how far removed the license holder is from the patient.

So by now I see wellness IV therapy is available locally and it’s just not sitting right with me. We are not designed to meet our vitamin and mineral needs by getting them dropped directly into our blood stream, especially the synthetic forms of vitamins. No, we were created to get nutrients from real food, complete with enzymes and other synergistically acting components that all work together to give our bodies what they need.

So I do some research and my thoughts are confirmed. One author called vitamin IVs “expensive pee.” The contents of the IV bag are transferred to your bloodstream where your kidneys filter it and you make really pretty urine, then it’s gone. $100+ down the toilet, literally. Nutrients are absorbed into the bloodstream from your gut and it’s a process that wasn’t supposed to skipped over.

But people say they feel better after they get one of the multiple concoctions available. Well you’re more hydrated and you sat and rested for half an hour. You feel like you’re doing self care so there’s probably a strong placebo effect.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that it works a little-or even a lot. It can only be temporary because these are water soluble vitamins. Your body can’t store the excess so you’d need to replenish in a couple of days.

So in addition to this being a “cheater” way to get nutrients (and we can’t outsmart the body), the nutrients aren’t from a whole-food source, another issue I have is that IV therapy does not get to the root cause. Why are we sick and run down? This is the real issue. I’m about to offend some people but here’s my opinion: at worst, wellness IV therapy is a scam and at best it’s a weak bandaid.

There is no quick fix for wellness.

Read it again.

To feel well, we need to fuel and rest well. That means real, whole foods-a variety of them in many rich colors, mineralized water, moving our bodies, resting well, and lowering our stress and toxicity load. The body can handle some processed food, some stress, some non-optimal water but it can not handle (long term) a poor diet, the American dream of hustle-hustle and being busy as an idol. Throwing an IV in your arm every so often will not fix that (or anything, in my opinion).

PS-Anyone suffering from dehydration they can not reverse do to nausea and vomiting may, of course, benefit from replacing fluids with an IV, though if it would cure hyperemesis in pregnancy, we would have been using it long ago.

Disclaimer: I am not talking about sick people who need IV therapy in an acute setting. I’m talking about generally healthy people thinking this is a boost to their nutrition.