Vitamin IVs: A Doctor's Honest Answers to Questions You Were Embarrassed to Ask

Vitamin IVs are now offered at almost every other clinic, even with home visits: bright signs, enticing names, discounts on courses, and impressive before-and-after photos. It's beautiful, fast, and fashionable. But the reality of the procedure scares many, or at least makes them wary—a needle in a vein and substances that enter the bloodstream. A thousand questions immediately arise. Is it safe? Will there be an overdose? Why bypass the stomach at all? What if I have an allergy?

We've compiled eight of the most frequently asked questions online about vitamin IVs and asked someone who has administered thousands of IVs over thirty years of medical practice and knows practically everything about them to answer them. Dr. Mikhail Fulmes, founder Dr. Fulmes Health Institute in New York, agreed to tell everything as honestly as possible, without fluff and marketing – the same way he explains the procedure to his patients when they sit across from him in the office and hold their test results in their hands for the first time.

1. What are vitamin drips?

This isn't a magical, all-purpose beauty and health shot, but a precise intravenous delivery of those substances that your body is currently critically lacking.

Basis basically A normal saline solution is taken, the same salt composition as your own blood plasma. All the necessary vitamins and microelements are added to it, based on your test results.

All of this is introduced into the bloodstream very slowly (an IV drip lasts from 30 to 120 minutes), but there are certain combinations of medications that can be administered intravenously using a syringe. Immediately after administration, this "cocktail" begins working directly in the cells—no losses due to intestinal or liver dysfunction (their impact on vitamin absorption is discussed below).

2. Why even the most expensive pills and dietary supplements almost never produce the effect they promise

Pills and dietary supplements will only deliver the advertised benefits if you have a perfect gut, a perfect liver, and live on an organic farm without stress or medication. This means that for 95% of modern people, this is not an option. The problem isn't the quality of vitamin supplements (which can be exceptional), but rather that modern humans face four serious obstacles between their mouth and their cells:

1. Stomach: Most people already have low stomach acidity, and if someone is taking omeprazole, pantoprazole, or any other proton pump inhibitor, the acidity is practically zero. In this environment, B12 is not released from protein, and magnesium and other micronutrients are not converted into the ionic form necessary for absorption.
2. Small intestine: 80–90% of adults have at least mild SIBO (this is when the small intestine is overpopulated with bacteria that should only be found in the large intestine), inflammation, or a disrupted microbiome. This prevents most nutrients from being absorbed.
3. The liver: everything absorbed in the small intestine passes through it. Unfortunately, up to 80% of it is converted into inactive metabolites.
4. The kidneys remove the remains of what has been eaten/drank and digested too quickly, without allowing them to be processed.

"If you have any bloating, diarrhea, constipation, or heartburn, these are all signs of a gastrointestinal imbalance. This can be caused by an imbalance of beneficial bacteria, the presence of harmful bacteria, excessive fungal growth, or problems with enzyme production, bile... Even minor gastrointestinal disturbances can lead to imperfect absorption. As a result, a person can ingest 10,000 units of vitamin D every day, but its levels will still be low. You can eat kilograms of spinach every week and still suffer from low iron levels because it simply passes through and isn't absorbed. Therefore, intravenous vitamin infusions are necessary.

It's a kind of boost. The thing is, when there's a deficiency in the body, we get caught in a vicious cycle: we eat enough micronutrients and vitamins, but our body can't absorb them. As a result, the vitamin deficiency worsens, which exacerbates the imbalance in biochemical processes and further impairs intestinal function and its ability to absorb micronutrients. And we can't get out of this situation with food and pills alone. For that, we need an IV that delivers everything we need directly into the bloodstream," he noted. Dr. Fulmes.

But it's important to understand that sometimes an IV only addresses the symptom, not the underlying problem. If gastrointestinal problems are serious, they also need to be treated. Otherwise, the vicious cycle will continue and only get worse.

"Some people use IVs to give their bodies the boost they need and break the cycle because their gastrointestinal function has improved and the body has healed itself. But in most cases, the effect of IVs will be temporary because we're leaving our body's most fundamental mechanism—the gastrointestinal tract—untreated." “It’s also very important to understand that when the intestines are compromised, the liver, to put it bluntly, becomes clogged with waste, and treating the liver is another key task,” explained Dr. Fulmes.

3. Is it possible to use a universal IV drip without tests?

Some clinics do offer "universal" vitamin cocktails, but that's like treating the average fever in a hospital: let's give everyone paracetamol and hope it works. Tests are mandatory, and Dr. Fulmes doesn't administer a single IV without them to ensure the best results. Before the first procedure, at least four or five tests are performed:

• complete blood vitamin and mineral profile;
• urine for organic acids and loss of zinc with B6;
• plasma amino acid profile;
• liver and kidney tests;
• sometimes thyroid hormones and cortisol.

"Setting up an IV without these numbers is like flying a plane without instruments. One patient needs tryptophan for serotonin, another needs NAD for energy, and a third needs glutathione for the liver. There's no one-size-fits-all solution," Mikhail Fulmes emphasized.

A "universal" vitamin cocktail won't be effective because you're not treating your own deficiency, but rather the problems of the average person. But if you identify your specific deficiency, treating it will be much easier.

“The way I see it, the whole idea behind these IVs is very simple: if you're going to inject something into yourself, you have to do it right,” concluded Dr. Fulmes.

According to him, a doctor's job isn't simply to administer an IV; it needs to be chosen correctly, and then the effect needs to be monitored, whether the levels of the targeted substances are increasing, and whether the initial IV doesn't produce the expected effect can be adjusted. The Energy Boost formula is an exception.

4. What substances are used in vitamin IVs?

В Dr. Fulmes Health Institute Only the highest-purity pharmaceutical forms are used. IV drips may contain NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, the most important energy molecule in every cell of our body), glutathione, vitamins C, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6 (in the form of P5P), B12 (methylcobalamin), folic acid in the form of methylfolate, magnesium sulfate or chloride, zinc, selenium, taurine, glycine, proline, MSM (methylsulfonylmethane), hyaluronic acid, and amino acid chelates.

There's no fixed "menu" of standard cocktails at the Dr. Fulmes Health Institute due to a personalized approach: each formula is selected based on blood and urine tests, as well as an amino acid profile. However, we can highlight the key types of IVs that are most commonly used. Keep in mind that the final formula composition and the concentration of each element will depend on your test results.

Energy Boost: A cocktail for restoring energy and mitochondrial function. Ideal for chronic fatigue, stress, and after surgery or chemotherapy. Increases cellular ATP levels, improves concentration, and reduces anxiety. The effects are felt within a few hours after the procedure. Ingredients: NAD+ (for energy), glutathione (for liver detox), complete B-complex (B1, B2, B3, B5, B6 in active forms, B12 as methylcobalamin), magnesium (sulfate or chloride), taurine.

Immune Drip: To strengthen the immune system and prevent infections. It activates immune cells, reduces inflammation, and helps with frequent acute respiratory viral infections.In most cases, it is combined with ozone for an antibacterial effect. Ingredients: Vitamin C, zinc, selenium, glutathione, vitamin D (if there is a deficiency).

Beauty Drip: For skin, hair, and nails. Boosts collagen levels, moisturizes, and combats hair loss and dullness. Ingredients: biotin, MSM, proline and glycine, hyaluronic acid, zinc, selenium, vitamin C.

The list goes on and on – thanks to a personalized approach, Dr. Fulmes Health Institute will create the perfect IV formula to help address your specific deficiencies and concerns.

"It's especially worth mentioning high doses of vitamin C before, during, and after surgery. Its use has been shown to improve wound healing and reduce infectious complications," added Dr. Fulmes.

5. What symptoms should you consider a vitamin IV drip for?

Dr. Fulmes explained: a healthy person always maintains two balances—mental and physical. As soon as one of them collapses, signals appear, and they are very specific:

• you wake up tired, although you slept 7-8 hours, your sleep is not deep;
• during the day you constantly want to lie down, or you have no energy already in the second half of the day;
• anxiety and irritability appear “out of the blue”;
• hair falls out in clumps, nails peel and white streaks appear;
• persistent dark circles or bags under the eyes that don’t go away even after vacation;
• hands and feet are cold even in a warm room in summer;
• colds occur 4-6 times a year, each lasting 2-3 weeks;
• After a normal workout or a stressful week, recovery takes several days.

"If you have at least three or four of these conditions, it's not just fatigue from work. It's a real deficiency of something important in the body that has accumulated over months and years," Dr. Fulmes concluded.

If these symptoms appear, it's essential to get tested to determine what's missing, and then try to correct it—through diet, pills, injections, or IVs. The choice of treatment should be based on your overall health and test results. But again, according to Dr. Fulmes's so-called health map, the basis for treatment is an analysis of the five health factors.

6. Duration of one procedure, and how many are needed on average

The procedure takes from thirty (ozonated saline) to one hundred and twenty minutes (high doses of NAD or vitamin C). During this time, you can read a book, watch a movie, or work.

As for the number of sessions, everything is very individual.

"If you give an IV even just once, it'll be some kind of experience that we can build on. If you don't feel anything after one IV, you probably need to increase the dose or repeat it again. If you feel changes, that's a good sign; you don't even need to repeat it. It's impossible to predict how a patient's body will react and say you need one IV, but you need 10," the doctor noted.

Typically, a single session produces a noticeable effect lasting several weeks or months. For severe chronic deficiency, a course of four to eight IVs is usually prescribed, spaced seven to ten days apart.

7. How safe are vitamin IVs, what are the side effects and contraindications?

Safety is almost 100% if everything is done professionally and based on analysis.

"We introduce substances that the body already produces every day, just in slightly larger quantities and in pure form," explained Mikhail Fulmes.

In thirty years of practice and thousands of procedures, the doctor has seen serious side effects literally only a few times, and only then due to allergies that the patient was unaware of beforehand.

Common sensations include mild nausea in the first five minutes (this goes away on its own), redness at the injection site, and sometimes a slight drop in blood pressure (this can be resolved with a glass of water and ten minutes of rest).

The list of contraindications for vitamin IVs is very short: severe renal failure, early post-infarction, or post-stroke period. Pregnant women are advised to obtain their gynecologist's consent before the procedure.

"By the way, regarding pregnancy, I should mention the undeservedly forgotten experience of high doses of vitamin C. Dr. Frederick Klener noted the smooth course of pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum recovery in women who took high doses of vitamin C, which can be administered both intravenously and in tablets."

8. I'm afraid of taking too many vitamins at once. What's the best one to start with?

Start with ozonized saline solutionFor this procedure, a normal saline solution is passed through a medical ozonizer, producing an ozone concentration of twenty to fifty micrograms per milliliter. No vitamins or allergens are injected into the patient's bloodstream—only bound active oxygen.

This IV drip instantly improves microcirculation, saturates every cell with oxygen, kills viruses and bacteria, relieves chronic inflammation, and triggers the body's own synthesis of glutathione and antioxidant protection.

"It's suitable for absolutely everyone—even pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, children, and cancer patients of any condition. It's the ideal first step," recommends Mikhail Fulmes.

If you still have questions after all this, schedule a consultation and tests at the Dr. Fulmes Health Institute:

• (718) 743-4450
• www.doctorfulmes.com

This text is published for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice or a guide to action.