Wild night? New service makes hangover house calls

By Lindsay Carlton, Fox News August 25, 2014

Jackie Menda, a 26 year-old fashion industry professional, has a secret weapon to keep her going after a long night out on the town- and it’s not greasy food and Gatorade.

“The first time I called The I.V Doc I was hung-over and feeling very tired and dehydrated- and I had a massive headache,” Mendatold FoxNews.com.

The IV Doc is one of the first in-home Intravenous (IV) hydration services with outlets in New York City, the Hamptons and Chicago. Patients can call or go online to select one of the four IV treatments. Within an hour, a registered nurse arrives at a client’s home or office with an IV bag, offering one of the four IV treatments—“cleanse”, “detox”, “refresh” and “revive”. The “cleanse” includes 1,000 ml of a sterile solution that is a mix of electrolytes, while the others additionally offer more solutions plus medication infusions targeted at nausea and other ailments.

IV hydration has long been used to treat dehydration in emergency rooms and involves injecting fluids into a patient’s veins.

According to Dr. Adam Nadelson, a general surgeon and founder of The I.V Doc, while the idea for IV hydration treatments are nothing new, delivering the hangover treatment to your doorstep is what separates his company from others.

“We feel that patients deserve the best treatment and so, how can u leave your bed if you’re just feeling horrible?” Nadelson told FoxNews.com.

Once an appointment is made, a nurse will call the patient and discuss the treatment process and options.

“They take care of you from beginning to end,” Menda said. “They checked on me in less than 24-hours after the treatment just to make sure it was effective and that everything was ok.”

By giving hydration therapy through an IV line, patients receive the fluids faster than by drinking them, Nadelson said.

“I was really impressed with how quickly you could feel the results,” Menda, who received the “detox” treatment, said. “I would say within two to five minutes of getting the IV, you actually do feel more energized, you feel the results, and you feel like yourself again.”

According to Dr. Manny Alvarez, the senior managing health editor of FoxNews.com, IV hydration runs the risk of fluid overload. In a hospital setting, under certain clinical criteria, physicians may administer intravenous hydration. While doing so, they keep tabs on hourly rates of infusion, urine output and total fluids administered. Large, acute infusions of fluid, like taking a whole litre of fluid (1,000 ml) in thirty minutes, can have side effects depending on age and underlying medical conditions. The most common side effect is pulmonary edema, water in the lungs.

The I.V Doc treatments take about thirty minutes and the cost ranges from $200 to $250 dollars a session, depending on the treatment type.

“This is a luxury service for our patients that we provide with this in-home type service,” Nadelson said. “We hydrate them up and get them back on their feet so their able to function at the high level that they’re used to functioning in right away.”

The I.V Doc will soon be available in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

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