You Want to Put that Where? An Intro to IV Therapy
Sorry for anyone who ready the title and is only here “for the articles.” Like everything else in GYN world, this topic isn’t nearly as sexy as the title makes it out to be. Let’s talk about IV therapy. How do I explain it? Generally speaking if we all ate really healthy low carb food that was raised in a holistic and regenerative way and picked off the farm just hours before making it to the table where it’s served with only pasture raised ruminants and eggs, this would not be a necessary conversation. If your life looks more like mine - what veggies are on sale this week and which one do I have a prayer of coaxing into my 4 year old and your gardening looks like mine - the cherry tomatoes do great and a few herbs, but I feed more deer than humans with my gardening, you may want to read on.
Why not just take a few extra vitamins? Mostly it’s the absorption. When critical nutrients and vitamins are in food, they are in stable, usable forms. Often, we can’t do the same with shelf stable vitamins. The B-12 you buy at the store - cyanocobalamine - and what I’ve prescribed for years is extremely stable - in fact, it’s so stable that your body can hardly get the B-12 separated from the cyanide it’s bound to. And do you really want the extra cyanide? Then there are things like antioxidants. Vitamin C is a great example. As most of you know, there is alot of vitamin C in orange juice. Leaving asside the sugar, it’s hard to get a whole 1-2 bottles of OJ (the gallon sized ones) in every day and when your body is suffering from a particular oxidative stress, you need those volumes. Some things have to be given IV becasue they aren’t absorbed well from the gut - if you’ve ever had a gastric sleeve, bypass or other GI surgery, you may be getting adequate B-12, but since it can only be absorbed in one part of the gut, you cannot absorb it.
What’s nice is that we have a way around our less than perfect diets with commercially grown agricultural products and a away to avoid having really expensive urine full of unabsorbable vitamins. It’s called IV therapy. By utilizing IV access (or shots into the muscle for some things), we are able to provide the nutrients, minerals, antioxidants and cofactors that we are missing out on.
I think one of the most common complaints that I want to fix is - “I just don’t have the energy that I used to. I wake up tired, stay tired all day and fall in to bed tired at night.” If you aren’t anemic and your thyroid is ok, I don’t have much to offer you on the more conventional side of medicine. In fact, we came up with a diagnosis and called it chronic fatigue syndrome for which the top treatment is an antidepressant. This is the number one place I will make the argment that the absence of disease is not the same as the presence of health. When we don’t have sufficient antioxidants and cofactors for our bodys enzymatic reactions, then the result will be fatigue, aging, physical stress, poor immune function and not feeling as good as you could.
So, lets discuss the most commonly used IV nutritional therapy formulation: The Myers Cocktail. This was first developed by Dr. Myers and while today we don’t know the exact formula he used (he was tragically killed in a car accident) what most people mean by this is a combination of magnesium, calcium, B-complex vitamins, B12 and vitamin C. It’s commonly given with another antioxidant - glutathione - for people who need a boost.
Magnesium - an important element in muscle contraction and inflammation. It helps with relaxing smooth muscle, which makes breathing easier for people with asthma, improves menstrual cramps and relaxes intestinal muscles easing constipation. In people with migraine, it helps relax overactive nerves and releases muscle tension.
Calcium - an imporant element in muscle contraction and bone health. This is imporant for having your muscles function well and helps you feel less fatigued. Calcium is also critical in forming strong bone. Especially for women in their peri/early post menopausal years, having adequate calcium is crucial for long term bone health.
B-viatmain Complex - thiamine (vitamin B1), riboflavin (vitamin B2), niacin (vitamin B3), pantothenic acid (vitamin B5), pyridoxine (vitamin B6), biotin (B7), folate (B9) - these crucial viatimins are involved in body reactions too numberous to list. Deficiecies are most common in people with frequent vomiting (pregnancy is now the number one cause of severe B1 deficiency - it was alcoholism when I was in med school), people with poor dietary intake - vegans and vegetarians, people taking antacids and our ability to absorb it naturally decreases with age. B vitamins are crucial for proper brain function, making red blood cells, heart health and more.
B-12 - Why does this one get its own special line? Because it’s one of the hardest to keep adequate levels of at the same time that it has the biggest impact on energy and our sense of wellness.
Vitamin C (Ascorbic acid) - a powerful antioxidant that fights free radicals, which otherwise float around messing cells up and causing most of what we think of as “aging.” It’s important for supporting the immune system, producing collagen in the body, improves blood pressure, helps absorb iron from plant based food and helps protect the heart.
for poeple who need more than minimal vitamin C supplementation, it is critical we do labwork to make sure your body is capable of tolerating it.
Glutathione - a separate add on that helps repair oxidative stress in our bodies. We are capable of making this on our own, but can only do so when we’ve been in a fasted state for about 12 hours. With the “eat 5 times a day motto” that is so often pushed, we eliminate our body’s ability to form this cruicial antioxidant. This could be one of the most important natural defenses our body has against dangers of the modern world, especially pollution.
So, how do you get these miracles?
Step 1 - medical consultation. Every one isn’t a candidate for everything and I wouldn’t want to offer someone a medicine when they won’t benefit from it and don’t have an indication.
Step 2 - Labs - this step is not always necesscary, but when addressing particular concerns or tracking progress in therapy, this can be a crucial step.
Step 3 - Set up an IV therapy appointment. This can be done in the office or, for a convenience fee, we can deliver it to your home.
Step 4 - Start feeling Better.
How long will this take? This is very patient dependent. If you have a stomach bug, we know time is of the essense to getting you better and we don’t need labs to know what to do. If we are working on a longer term goal, we may do this over the course of several weeks.
How many treatments will you need? As always, it depends. Leaving aside acute illnesses, most things are treated with a series of sessions. Often this is done more closely when first starting therapy, such as every week and then transitioning to a maintenance therapy plan for monthly treatments. The care is individualized to each patient’s need.
Is IV therapy a gimmick? It’s everyone’s favorite answer - it depends. Like most things in medicine, we can tailor therapy to the patient in front of us helping them to achieve their health goals or we can use fake science to push high end retail products on people who don’t stand to benefit. I’d like to believe I’m doing the former and I belive this because I personally have experienced the benefits of this therapy and have had alot of patients who benefited.
If you have questions about whether you might benefit, give us a call at 843-353-6620.