Vitamin IV drip therapies have been around for nearly 25 years. Dr. John Myers had a big part in inventing these IV drips, and used them in a treatment he formulated that would eventually be named the Myers Cocktail.
These days, IV drip therapy is used in anti-aging medicine as well as for general support of energy. It is also used as a preventive measure for anything that may cause stress, like lack of sleep or dehydration. Vitamin therapies can help to rejuvenate and rehydrate the body. Oftentimes, they encourage a healthy libido, strengthen brain functions, aid in diet and detox, and support your general mood and energy.
A lot of high-performing athletes will also use drip therapy as a supplement. The treatments can really help these types of patients because their vitamins are depleting so quickly during high-intensity workouts.
These therapies have also been growing in popularity with younger people who are interested in preserving their youth and maintaining a healthy lifestyle in every stage of life.
What are IV vitamin drips?
In most cases, vitamins are added to the IV drip bag which simply contains saline, electrolytes, some sodium, and dextrose. The vitamins that will be added just depend on what is being offered, but most services will inform you on what options are available and which ones may be best for your individual situation. In addition to the saline solution, IV vitamin drips will contain a powerful antioxidant that is typically not absorbed as well if taken orally. This makes IV drips an ideal choice because of its effectiveness.
You will also receive a large dose of Vitamin C in most IV drips. While the dosage is higher than what you would need on a daily basis, the reason it’s so helpful is that when the drip therapy floods your system with the nutrient, antioxidant, and vitamin, it alters the electrons in your cell membranes allowing your immune system to gain easier access to and penetrate each and every cell in your body.
How do IV drips compare to oral supplements?
The biggest benefit of the vitamin drip is that you will receive all of the vitamins and the fluids straight into your bloodstream. In some cases, you may feel the effects immediately, compared to a multi-vitamin pill that might take a few hours to be absorbed.
An IV vitamin drip will also give you more than an oral supplement would. Whenever you take any supplement by mouth, about 50% of it is digested from the acids in your stomach. The drip therapy bypasses the stomach, ensuring that your body receives 100% of what is going into your system. Not only that, but your body wouldn’t even be able to handle the same number of vitamins if they were to go through your gastrointestinal tract. You would begin to experience diarrhea as your body rejected some of it. With the IV drip, the vitamins are going straight into your veins, circulating throughout your system, being filtered by your kidney, and being urinated.
What are the health benefits of IV vitamin drips?
A lot of the benefits of IV drip therapy come from it being a preventative measure in a patient’s lifestyle. It strengthens your body on a cellular level, allowing DNA to repair itself more efficiently and your telomeres to function properly. This is actually how vitamin drip therapy is related to anti-aging medicine. It can help slow the negative effects we experience with the aging process.
The traditional way to treat illness is to wait until there is something wrong before beginning to treat. Anti-aging practices, like IV drip therapy, work to prevent these things from happening. Why wait until something is wrong? Maybe the better questions to ask are: do I have a constant upset stomach? Do I have numbness or a hard time focusing? Do I have fatigue or abdominal pain?
In most cases, our bodies are not functioning fully because of imbalances of nutrients and vitamins in unhealthy diets. Most people don’t even drink enough water every day to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
It’s very important to understand that when you eat food, by the time your gastrointestinal system breaks it down and converts it into energy, it is no longer food. It is simply a nutrient. The same type of nutrients are being supplemented with treatments like IV vitamin drip therapy.
These nutrients are essential in maintaining healthy electric signals in your body. This allows your body’s processes to function properly so that your metabolism is running at a good rate, or so that your brain chemistry is optimal. And that is what is different from traditional medicine. These newer therapies do not wait for your sugar to go high or for your blood pressure to rise.
Doctors are now able to pay attention to the signals in your body to see what is coming, in addition to having the technology to alter those signals. Providing an IV vitamin drip is just one natural way to alter/boost these signals.
How often do people receive drip therapy?
According to some clinics, most patients will receive drip therapy about once a month or once every other month. In some situations, extremely active patients or professional athletes may visit once a week for treatment.
Is drip therapy good to get if you’re sick or under the weather?
Depending on what treatments you receive, a high dose of Vitamin C will help boost your immune system to fight off the infection that you have.
What are some of the other benefits of drip therapy?
In addition to boosting your immune system, IV drip therapy will also help improve your skin. The number one cause of wrinkles in young people is dehydration. Fluids in an IV drip will rehydrate you and also help with bags under your eyes. The IV fluid in addition to the essential vitamins will help your skin and your hair feel younger and healthier.
On average, a young and healthy person should be drinking about 8-10 glasses of water a day; however, if you are experiencing some dehydration over prolonged periods of time, IV drip therapy may be helpful in maintaining a healthier lifestyle.
Are there any downsides to receiving IV drip therapy?
The truth is that an IV is not the ideal way to maintain your vitamin levels. Your food is your primary way to intake nutrients. After eating food, some people need to supplement with a vitamin. The IV is not compensation for the oral intake, it is simply a different action or mechanism for a supplement.
Another way of looking at it is that if someone has a problem, then you have to super dose the vitamins. You can take them orally; however, there are certain limitations you will run into, which makes the IV supplement a way better option.
It can be a boost in order to compensate for lack of nutrients during recovery from an injury or depletion. It is not intended necessarily for daily consumption or use unless you are depleting your vitamin levels rapidly, as a professional athlete would. It may also be necessary if you are eating improperly or are experiencing sleep deprivation.
So, if you are doing well in areas like maintaining a proper diet, regular exercise, and low-stress levels then there isn’t really a need for a supplemented boost; however, in today’s world, it’s very difficult to avoid some of these situations.
Receiving IV drip therapy
In most cases, you will have a trained nurse practitioner or doctor administering the IV, so there is no need to worry about complications during the treatment. The only negative side effects patients have reported have been shortness of breath or dizziness, which can easily be fixed by adjusting the drip speed.
You shouldn’t have to take a blood test beforehand because of the way most of these vitamin therapies are formulated; however, still be sure to set up a consultation with your specialists to learn what is best for you.
