Since the 1960’s medical professionals have been utilizing intravenous (IV) vitamin therapy to treat everything from allergies to heart disease with great success. The pioneer of this movement, Dr John Myer’s first created his world-famous “Myer’s Cocktail” and treated all his patients with his specialty blend of vitamin c, magnesium, calcium, and b vitamins.
Decades later, after thousands of hours of research, we’ve been able to improve upon Dr. Myer’s original formula. These new formulations offer up so many more health benefits than the original, while still combining the convenience of time and effort into a single 30 to 45 minutes session.
Because the Myer’s Cocktail name is so widely recognized, it is used by many establishments as their standard infusion. Unfortunately, not all Myer’s Cocktails are the same. Essentially a Myer’s Cocktail is nothing more than vitamins in a bag of fluids. To be considered a Myer’s Cocktail, there doesn’t have to be a certain combination or number of vitamins. The only standard for a Myer’s Cocktail is that there are vitamins in a bag of either normal saline, sterile water, or lactated ringers. So what does this mean to you when choosing your IV vitamin therapy provider? Great question!
Let’s imagine you go to “Business A” to receive this Myer’s Cocktail you’ve heard so much about. They start your IV, hook you up to your fluids, and everything in the yellowish-orange IV bag flows into your arm. You feel great, pay them $250, and wave goodbye as you leave. A few weeks later, you see an advertisement offering a Myer’s Cocktail at “Business B” for $125! Only $125! “I got scammed!”, you think to yourself. But the reality is very far from that.
The issue is that while Business B is still technically giving you a Myer’s Cocktail (vitamins in a bag), they’re really giving you either the bare minimum of those vitamins or, worse, a dose that is below therapeutic levels, which means the vitamin they gave you are in insufficient quantity to affect your body. Whereas Business A gave you either above the therapeutic dose or the “maximum daily allowance” of the vitamins in their more expensive Myer’s Cocktail, thereby providing you with a much better “bang for your buck”. Unfortunately, some people value cost savings over actual benefits.
“But I’m getting some vitamins in the cheaper infusion, so that’s better than nothing!”
This is another misconception. As mentioned earlier, in order for the vitamins to do their job in your body, they need to be given in a certain amount. Otherwise, they will pass through your body with little to no effect, and you will just have wasted your hard-earned money. Look at your bottle of multivitamins. Look at the amounts of each ingredient, and notice three things:
First, all multivitamin brands have varying amounts of each ingredient. When you’re picking out a multivitamin from all the brands on the shelf, one of your considerations is always the amounts of the individual ingredients.
Second, if the amount of each ingredient didn’t matter, why are they putting 10,000 milligrams of certain vitamins in there? Why not just put 10 milligrams in there? The answer is that 10 milligrams wouldn’t get the job done and wouldn’t improve your health. Same as the $125 Myer’s Cocktail at Business B.
And third, everyone is different. The amount of benefit from a vitamin will vary greatly from a 105-pound woman to a 350-pound man. These differences, which make up who we are on a cellular level, need to be taken into consideration when determining how much goes into your IV infusion.
“But what if I overdose on vitamins? Isn’t that dangerous?”
Unless a provider is GROSSLY negligent, the chance of having any unintended side effects from IV vitamin therapy is extremely small. All the vitamins in an IV bag should be water-soluble. They will pass through the body, providing their benefits and leaving you healthier and more prepared to combat illness than ever before.
Take Away
Myer’s Cocktail is a general term used across the vitamin therapy industry. Unfortunately, it is not a standardized measurement, meaning not all Myer’s Cocktails are identical. Don’t be scared to ask your provider how much of an ingredient is in your infusion. And don’t throw your money away on Myer’s Cocktails with a price tag that seems too good to be true. The quality of ingredients is very important, but so is the quantity. Have a blessed day!
