Would you try an IV drip bar? What to know about this wellness trend

Once a Las Vegas curiosity, the IV drip bar is now a mainstream wellness stop, with celebrities including Kim Kardashian, Rihanna, Simon Cowell and Alix Earle popularizing on-demand vitamin infusions. Here's what to know about how these treatments work, what they cost and what doctors actually think of them.

What is an IV drip bar and how does it work?

An IV drip bar is a walk-in or mobile clinic where a nurse or physician's assistant places an IV catheter in your arm and delivers a custom blend of saline, vitamins and electrolytes directly into your bloodstream. Customers can request drips tailored for beauty, hangover recovery, immunity, vitamin C or general hydration.

Depending on symptoms and budget, providers may add anti-nausea drugs, pain medication, heartburn remedies or other medications to the mix. Branded product names include "Jet Lag Eraser," "Hydrofix" and "Epic Hangover Recovery." Mobile options exist too, including a tour bus experience that brings the service to your hotel room, home or office. The famous faces mentioned above were among the earliest adopters of the trend.

How much does an IV drip bar treatment cost?

In the US, IV drip bar treatments run roughly $80 to $875, depending on the ingredients and complexity of the drip. In Europe, treatments generally start at €100 and can cost more than €1,000.

Basic hydration and hangover recovery infusions sit at the lower end of that range. Specialty blends, immunity packages and NAD+ infusions push costs toward the top. For some customers, an IV drip bar visit is a one-time fix after a rough night. For others, it becomes a regular wellness routine. The concept dates to 2012, when an enterprising anesthesiologist in Las Vegas launched "Hangover Heaven," a mobile IV unit that came to your hotel room. Since then, IV lounges have spread across the country and expanded well beyond hangovers.

Do IV drip bars actually work for hangovers?

The original theory behind IV lounges treating hangovers is "quite flawed," according to Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, a professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.

Alcohol does impair the hormone that tells kidneys to hold onto water, but few people with a hangover wind up excessively dehydrated. "People who are drinking are drinking. There's water coming as well as pure alcohol. Even the strongest alcohol is 50% water," Goldfarb told CBS News . You feel lousy after drinking because of toxins from alcohol breakdown, not primarily dehydration, and Goldfarb said the kidneys clear those toxins efficiently without extra fluid. People who might genuinely benefit are those so hungover they are vomiting or experiencing diarrhoea and losing fluids rapidly enough to become dehydrated.

Are IV drip bars safe?

IV drip bars carry small but real risks, and the practice is generally unregulated, which has raised concern among doctors.

Writing for Harvard Health Publishing , Dr. Robert H. Shmerling said the injection site can become infected and a vein can become inflamed or blocked with a clot, a condition called superficial thrombophlebitis.

"While these complications are uncommon, even a small risk isn't worth taking if the treatment is not necessary or helpful," Shmerling wrote. Goldfarb told CBS News that a lack of regulation means "fast-buck operators could hurt people through unsafe practices." Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, also questioned the hangover model. "It plays on people's desire to go out drinking, and if they get a hangover there's a quick fix so they can go out and do it again. I think it sends a dangerous message," Glatter said.

Do IV vitamins work better than pills?

The absorption case for IV vitamins has some merit, though large human studies remain limited.

A June 2018 Healthline article noted that patients consuming vitamins orally may absorb up to 50% of the contents, while IV absorption can reach up to 90% of nutrients. A direct shot of vitamins into the bloodstream is likely more effective than an oral solution.

But a 2019 New England Journal of Medicine study on IV versus oral antibiotic treatment cautioned that "intravenous therapy is associated with substantial risks, inconvenience, and higher costs than oral therapy." That research looked at antibiotics, not vitamins, so its findings don't map perfectly onto wellness infusions.

What is NAD+ and why is it in IV drip bars?

NAD+ is a molecule deeply involved in mitochondrial energy production and cell health, including DNA repair, and NAD+ boosting supplements, injectables and IV infusions are one of the fastest-growing offerings in the wellness and longevity world.

A-list celebrities and biohackers are drawn to claims that NAD+ boosts energy, combats aging and enhances recovery. NAD+ levels naturally decline as we age, which may contribute to age-related disease risk. But the human evidence is still thin.

"Initially it was exciting. I think now the cart may be well ahead of the horse," Christopher Martens, director of the Delaware Center for Cognitive Aging Research, told NPR in 2026. Dr. Shalender Bhasin, director of the Boston Pepper Aging Research Center at Brigham and Women's Hospital, told NPR, "As a hypothesis, as an idea, it's very attractive. But we are still in the early stages of human studies and the health benefits of augmenting NAD+ are yet to be established in large human studies."

Dr. Samuel Klein, who directs the Center for Human Nutrition at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, was blunter. "The data in humans are pretty iffy right now that it actually has significant benefits. It's not uncommon for things to work really well in mice and then not translate to humans," Klein said.