Beauty trends have gone way beyond your mom’s Oil of Olay and are increasingly blurring the line between medicine and wellness. The fusion of hospital and spa seems complete, however, with the advent of infusion therapy and intravenous drips marketed as “wellness infusions.” As a nurse practitioner, who has run thousands of drip lines often in life-or-death situations, it caught my attention. My medical experience made me skeptical of the benefits or even the effectiveness of “wellness infusions.” So I decided to give it a try at DRIPbar in Utah. I’m not afraid of needles and, honestly, training for an upcoming race in this hot dry summer has left me dehydrated to the bone. While I kept my eyebrow raised over the wellness claims, I know for sure that intravenous drips are an excellent technique for rehydration.
But first a little medical history. An Oxford scientist created the first infusion device in 1656 with a writing quill and a pig’s bladder. We’ve come a long way since then. Its applications have benefits in the medical community for everything from blood transfusions to chemotherapy. These non-medical (although administered under medical supervision) wellness infusions are a new use for the old technology. A while back, I remember seeing a couple of places in Las Vegas selling infusions as a hangover cure. But these infusions are more for healthy folks who want to feel even more healthy
While I was recovering from a couple of brutal trail runs in the heat, my nursing friend Sarah Aldridge suggested I try DRIPBaR in Sandy, where she is the medical director. I was really impressed. The space is clean and comfortable with just enough medical touches to make it feel safe, but nothing like the ER. DRIPBaR has an extensive menu of choices and the staff is well educated, trained and ready to mix and drip the solutions to your specific needs. The infusions can offer quick energy boosts or immunity support.
“Using a combination of Vitamin B12, B complex, Taurine, Vitamin C, Biotin, and Folic Acid in an IV drip gave Mary an energy boost to help improve overall health and hydration,” Aldridge says. “There were added benefits of energy from an IV push dose of Glutathione.”
The reassuring fact that this space is medically supervised and all the medications are safely compounded in a sterile hood, helped my medical brain relax and enjoy the time spent. No quills and definitely no pig bladders involved. Does it work? Well, I certainly left more hydrated, and I felt and slept a lot better the next week. I’d add this to a wellness program, for sure.
