B vitamins are a critical part of maintaining your health. Luckily, you can grab them from a variety of natural sources. Look to dark leafy greens, fish, cantaloupe, poultry, meat, eggs, dairy…getting the picture? Needles do not reside on this list. You needn’t seek out shots for your nutrient…shot.

I regularly weight train at a boutique gym in Malibu (the creatively dubbed Malibu Fitness). The seamless indoor/outdoor feel, ocean views and palm trees perpetually jigging in the breeze (dreamy, ain’t it?) enhance the facility’s small town charm. As you might expect from a mom and pop establishment just a stone’s throw from the Pacific, plenty of vendors come to display their wares. Usually I pay them little heed, but seeing folks dropping trou and taking a needle in the rump was enough to catch my attention.

Injections in public have become more common these days. Your local CVS will hook you up with the anti-flu juice and toss in a tetanus cocktail at the same time. Hell, my son even had his football physical in a drug store this season, complete with spectators. When I saw the same taking place at my gym, I might have thought “steroids,” but the 70-something lady with her panty line exposed steered my naturally curious mind elsewhere. I had to know more.

Turns out, this particular vendor was a naturopathic doctor hawking vitamin B shots. I approached Dr. Feelgood and peppered her with some questions. She warmly shared her secrets.

“When we inject them (the B vitamins), they bypass the digestive system, so they’re going to be a lot stronger. It goes straight into the bloodstream so you’re going to get 100% of that vitamin. My shot has B5, B6, B complex, MIC, which is methionine, choline, and inositol. It’s all in one.”

As she was explaining, her client chimed in.

“It’s a cocktail,” the parrot squawked while pulling her sweats back up.

The doc continued.

“In my office we can do an IV drip, we can run amino acids, magnesium, calcium, all sorts of things.”

Hmmm. I eat lots of those vitamins daily, but she’s a doctor, right? Might as well see if I’m missing something.

“Aren’t all of these things found in food?”

“They are and in an ideal world we’d get them through our food, but what I find is that people aren’t eating enough of them or if they are their digestive system is not strong enough to be absorbing enough of it, Even if that’s all working fine, a lot of people are stressed out and not sleeping enough and subsequently burning through their vitamins more quickly or working out really hard so that the shots and the IVs or supplements will be good on top of your nutrients.”

Oh. In that case, let me just pull out my wallet…wait, no. You’ve been my partners for a while now. There’s no way we can blindly accept this narrative. The minute we start to hear about a magic shortcut, our detectors better start sensing smoke. Time to search for the fire. From kevinmd.com:

Many adults are told that their vague symptoms of tiredness or fatigue are caused by B12 deficiency instead of actually trying to address genuine issues like insufficient sleep, sleep apnea, overreliance on caffeine and depression (to name a few of the genuine causes of fatigue).

It’s comforting to hear that there is a quick and easy fix to all of your problems. Real solutions require a much concentrated lifestyle change. I raised my hand on the caffeine reliance; I’m drinking far too much black coffee these days. Shot of espresso? I’ve been there. Shot in the ass? Nope. The real advice from my doctor should be to drink less joe. Unfortunately for our ND over here, that advice costs nothing. Injections are where the real profit is.

So why this fetish with injections? From the patient’s point of view, shots feel more like something important is going on. Placebos need rituals—with acupuncture, for instance, the elaborate ritual creates an illusion of effectiveness. And from the doctor’s point of view, injections reinforce dependence on the physician, creating visits and cash flow.

There, now I’ve saved you oodles of time and cash. Ready to celebrate? There’s good news. You can grab a shot cocktail after your night of…well…shots and cocktails. Hangover Heaven in Las Vegas will pump you full of vitamins after a long evening of partying. They’ll get you ready for round two, three and four. You’ve been on the party bus. Hop on the morning after express. From their website:

The Hangover Heaven Bus is a 45-foot rolling hangover treatment clinic that has been modified to provide first-class medical treatment while simultaneously offering resort-style comfort.

If you’re hungover after a long night of raging and the room is spinning, just stick your finger down your throat and get it over with, softie (okay, not really).  I’m not saying that an IV bag filled with fluids and supplements won’t make you feel better, but do you really need to be resorting to hopping on a bus full of needles?

The answers here don’t require a questionable medical degree and a vial of healing fluid. They’re pretty simple. If you’re dehydrated and nutrient starved after slurping martinis, drink water and ingest the vitamins in their naturally occurring form. Too nauseous? Drink less booze.  Tired? Get some rest.  Stressed? Take a walk and grab some deep breaths.

I’ve been looking for the right words to describe this latest “self-help” idea. Western, Eastern, Alternative medicine? Maybe I’m looking in the wrong place. From Pediatric Insider:

If it works, it’s medicine. If it’s not known whether it works because good studies haven’t been done, a good term for it is “unproven medicine.” If good studies have shown that the treatment is ineffective, the best term I can think of would be “quackery.”

Still not convinced? Come on down to Malibu Fitness on a Wednesday. After I finish my set of squats, I’ll take your hand and introduce you to the doc. Just don’t blame me for your sore ass.

Kap