You could argue that scepticism is built into Irish DNA. For a nation of talkers, disparaging comments come easily, especially when the topic of health comes to the fore. I would generally fall into quite a sceptical camp — by both nature and nurture — but one which, thankfully, finds me pleasantly surprised more often than not. One such time was my recent visit to Get A Drip, a clinic offering vitamins and ‘nutrient therapy’ delivered by intravenous drip.
uzz about these drips has been building since 2008, when Tokyo clinic Tenteki 10 first began offering a 10-minute drip, where, for just €15, Japan’s famously diligent business people could get a quick fix before returning to the office.
Rihanna is rarely wrong. So, when photographs of her having a cocktail of high-dose vitamins drip-fed directly into her bloodstream were uploaded in 2012, people took notice.
Since then, the idea has grown legs — with everyone from celebs such as Chrissy Teigen and Miley Cyrus to Coachella attendees (there’s a pop-up clinic in a hotel near the festival) reaching for IVs to cure a multitude. Of course, anyone Kardashian-adjacent will already know this, with LA’s jet-set opting for infusions for everything from immunity boosts to hangover cures.
As someone who gets a vitamin B12 injection from my GP every 12 weeks — yes, thank you, I do always look tired — I was keen to find out whether a bag of nutrition would rejig my very average body to superhuman standards. Do they really work, I wondered? Is the key to eternal glow a shot in the cubital fossa? Intrigued, I accepted an invitation from Get A Drip to review the service.
Launched in London in October 2017, Get A Drip offers an array of vitamin drips and booster shots proffering an amplified sense of health and well-being. The brand asserts that, “Intramuscular vitamins help to rebalance the body’s natural vitamin levels to optimise your day-to-day well-being. It is a procedure that is quick to administer, fast-acting and effective because it bypasses the gastrointestinal tract, meaning that 100pc of vitamins and nutrients are absorbed directly into the body.” Drips are administered intravenously, while booster shots are administered intramuscularly.
Any Real Housewives fans will have already seen similar drips in action, such is the uptake of intravenous nutrition in LA and New York. London was on board too, which is why the franchise has now expanded to here — in the hope that Dubliners are also keen to sample the effects of direct vitamin absorption.
In June this year, married couple Jean and Robert O’Leary opened their Get A Drip franchise at Junction 6 in Dublin’s Castleknock. Located within a leisure centre, the clinic is a little more than a stand and a little less than a doctor’s office. Crafted wood frames the arrangement, with Get A Drip logos plastered throughout. Three chairs sit under the hanging bags of treatment and Evian bottles fill the fridge.
On arrival, every customer is asked to fill in a complete medical history and to discuss this with the team prior to receiving a drip or booster. All treatments are administered by NMBI-registered nurses, and overseen by Dr Yuvraj Laxman Goud, the in-house IMC-registered doctor and chief medical officer.
Patrons try the service for myriad reasons, co-owner Robert says. Some to boost immunity after a bout of illness, others to rehydrate after a particularly gruelling fitness session, and others still to boost their B12 levels (a nutrient found in animal foods and some fortified products), something that Jean says “almost every woman we treat is low in”.
The menu reads like a trendy Los Angeles café — all primary colours and Instagram-friendly fonts — with vitamin drips and booster shots starting from €35. The range is expansive, covering everything from Basic Hydration to Immunity, Anti-Ageing, and even Hair Health. Premium packages are also on offer, including the Signature Drip, €500, and the Skin Health Course, from €250. You can also top up your drips with add-ons.
I followed the clinic’s recommendation to try the MutiVit Drip which contains a vitamin B complex and vitamin C as well as potassium, calcium, bicarbonate, glucose and sodium chloride.
Trypanophobics, look away now: a small cannula is needed to begin the process. It was inserted into a vein in my arm by a nurse and connected to the type of IV stand usually seen in hospitals. Get A Drip’s service requires 45 minutes to complete. Perhaps one of the biggest hooks the service has is the offer of almost an hour of uninterrupted quiet, sitting in a comfortable chair, to read a book, have a sleep or chill out.
The only sensation I got as the infusion was happening was that my arm felt cold. The surroundings are comfortable rather than clinical, but all the same I felt a twinge of embarrassment at looking as though I was having a medical treatment when there’s nothing wrong with me. Afterwards, I had a little bruising inside my arm, but I bruise easily.
Get A Drip claims that its method is one of the most effective ways to reach optimum nutrition, by administering essential vitamins directly into the body’s system, allowing it to absorb 100pc of the nutrients compared to as little as 10pc absorption from oral supplements.
“Nutrition therapy is a great way to give your body a boost,” Dale Pinnock, aka The Medicinal Chef and a Get A Drip ambassador, says. “There are a multitude of positive uses, from correcting vitamin deficiencies to ensuring general well-being — it’s a treatment that can benefit most people.” However, Maeve Hanan, registered dietitian and founder of Dietetically Speaking, says that diet should still be our primary source of vitamins and minerals. “In general, the best way of getting our nutrients is from a balanced and varied diet rather than supplements, as supplements can’t fully replicate the ‘food matrix’ that we get in wholefoods — this is the complex combination of nutrients and interactions between nutrients in food.
“We are also much less likely to consume a dangerously high dose of a nutrient when it is found in food versus supplements. But there are exceptions to this — for example, women should take a folic acid supplement when trying to conceive and for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy and it’s difficult to get enough vitamin D for most of the year in Ireland, so vitamin D supplements can be very useful in this context. For those who do need to supplement, in my experience, oral supplements [like tablets and sprays] are usually effective, unless advised otherwise by a doctor.”
Echoing this is GP Dr Doireann O’Leary, who says while the potential for harm is low, there are easier and far more cost-effective ways to consume vitamins. “I’m not one of those people who dismisses supplements or anything — I take them every day myself,” she says. “They are important and have a role, but it’s important to know what you’re taking, why you’re taking it and if you need it. You also need to be mindful about the money you spend on these things. If I’m prescribing or recommending something, it’s important to suggest something that is affordable for patients rather than having them waste money.”
She adds: “Also, we were always advised while working in hospital to only administer medicine intravenously if the patient really needed it. If the patient can swallow, we get them to swallow the medication. We don’t put drips on people for no reason.”
Hanan says that there is a potential to do yourself harm with the use of any type of vitamin supplement. “If we aren’t deficient in a nutrient, then there is often no additional benefit of consuming a high amount of it, and consuming large doses of vitamins and minerals can be harmful.
“This is particularly true for fat-soluble vitamins that stay in our system for longer, like vitamin A and vitamin E, and for certain minerals as well. For example, very high doses of vitamin A have been linked with weakened bones and liver damage.”
There’s no fear of overdoing it at Get A Drip, which offers only water-soluble vitamins, such as vitamin C. However, despite my friends’ interest in the effects of these drips as a hangover cure, the clinic does not suggest using its products to sustain a party lifestyle; the opposite, in fact. Get A Drip aims to provide wellness, from the inside out, to a population that spends a lot of time indoors and is probably lacking a number of key ingredients needed to feel good.
While added hydration can’t hurt the after-effects of a night on the town, Get A Drip’s modus operandi, its owners say, is providing goodness, rather than remedying the effects of badness.
So, is an intravenous trickle going to change your life, feed your kids and do your laundry?
Admittedly, the treatments don’t leave you feeling otherworldly right away. Similar to the kind of infusion you would get from your GP, the process is slow-acting rather than immediate. More cappuccino than espresso.
Robert O’Leary said that he felt very little immediate result from the MultiVit Drip — the one I tried — but feels noticeably bouncier after the Energy Drip.
Straight after my treatment, I felt as he did — little immediate effect. The ‘energy burst’ in the days afterwards was also minimal, but it’s worth noting that I haven’t felt the need to visit my GP for a B12 top-up as I usually would.
At the very least, getting a vitamin drip gives you 45 minutes of ‘you time’. And isn’t that the boost we all need?
Get A Drip is located at Junction 6 in Castleknock, Co Dublin, and open Monday to Sunday from 10am to 6pm. Book at getadrip.com or see @getadripireland on Instagram
