I’m Jason Toon, and I don’t really get drunk anymore - not because I’m a paragon of virtue but because I can’t take hangovers at my age. For this Shoddy Goods, the newsletter from Meh about consumer culture, I look into the most oft-cited miracle cure for the brown-bottle flu…

Ah, the dawning of a new year. A time of hope. A time of renewal. A time of brain-hammering, gut-scouring, soul-shredding hangovers.

Somewhere between the tears and the vomit, you may have woozily wondered about those IV-injection hangover cures. Maybe your friend’s brother was a medic in the Army, and they did it all the time. Maybe your cousin swears by them after a wild bachelorette weekend in Vegas. Maybe you’re ready to stop messing around with Gatorade and bananas and get intravenous.

Can it really be that easy? Is a hangover-free morning just an injection away?

The IV league

Chances are you’ve got a lot of choices nearby, wherever you live. Hangover IV clinics aren’t just for the Vegas Strip and Beverly Hills anymore. Nobody knows exactly how many have popped up in the decade or so since the first ones appeared, because they’re part of this unregulated gray area of “med spas.”

Wrapping themselves in medical-ish trappings but stopping just shy of making verifiable health claims, many med spas offer a range of IV services, of which hangover relief is just one. If you’ve been unaware of designer IV treatments becoming a thing with so-called “wellness” and “beauty” and “fitness” influencers, I’m sorry to be the reason you know that now.

Estimates of the industry as a whole point to about 9,000 med spas in the US, turning over about $15 billion a year. If hangover IV represents a small fraction of that total, it’s still not chump change. The point is, any decent-sized metro area will have a range of options, from upscale Zen-drenched “IV lounges” to rough-and-ready needles-on-wheels outfits consisting of little more than a van and a bag of medical supplies.

Yes, unlike real doctors, many hangover IV providers make house calls. You can even throw an IV party with the likes of the national chain Drip Hydration, who’ll come out to your shindig like they’re magicians or strippers. “Drip Hydration can set up a dedicated recovery room with a stationed nurse at your bachelorette or bachelor party,” they promise. “We can have several IVs going at the same time so that your guests can keep socializing while enjoying the benefits of treatment.” Seems a little grim to me, but then some people like grim.

Getting pricked might not be easy, especially at peak times like New Year’s Day. Pretty much every service recommends booking in advance, which makes sense when you know you’ll be getting hammered. If you’re dealing with the morning after an impromptu session that got out of hand, though, it’s more of a crapshoot.

And then there’s the price. $150-$300 seems to be the rough range for a post-hangover IV drip, with add-ons like headache relief and anti-nausea medication often available at an additional price. Got a wedding or a court date? Maybe that’s money well spent. Moaning on the couch through an otherwise lazy Sunday? Maybe not.

“Miracle” or “marginally better”?

Of course, whether the cure is “worth it” also depends on how well it works. First, there’s no one approved hangover treatment. Every provider mixes up their own cocktail, which may or may not contain a bunch of B vitamins; minerals like magnesium, potassium, and zinc; and the aforementioned painkillers and anti-nausea drugs.

What IV hydration is undeniably good for is fast hydration and nutrition. The bloodstream shortcut gets those electrolytes and minerals pumped up in short order compared to oral ingestion. And if your digestive system is so rekt you can’t even keep PediaLyte down, that’s not an issue with an IV.

But not every symptom of a hangover is dehydration’s fault. Your body still has to break all that alcohol down into, basically, poisons like acetaldehyde and formaldehyde before they’re excreted or diluted out of your system. Individuals respond differently to those substances based on their personal genetics.

Different treatments and different people mean different opinions on the efficacy of hangover IV drips. A look through some Reddit threads runs the gamut:

• “Helped a bit with the hangover but a Gatorade and green smoothie with eggs would have had same effect.” (Time_Trade_9774)

• “I’ve done it multiple times and it’s amazing every time.” (I_need_more_juice)

• “I feel marginally better but def not worth the price.” (Due-Muffin4912)

• “I’ve never had any remedy that was as good as [an IV], other than abstinence of course.” (WandreTheGiant)

• “Feeling really bloated, constipated, stomach hurts more than the hangover, instantly felt tired (took naps), slowly drinking water. We think it might have been the Glutathione.” (GladePlugins)

• “Went to a conference in Vegas ten years or so ago... decided we were going to blow off some major steam. Those IVs were miracles.” (photogypsy)

Mishaps aside, a professionally administered IV infusion will almost certainly help some. Beyond that, you’re basically betting a couple-few hundred bucks that your genes and that med spa’s particular cocktail team up to put you into that “miracle” category. Even the industry’s own figures cite a 75% success rate - not a bad bet but not a sure thing, either.

Alas, we’re left once again with that truth none of us particularly wants to hear: the most effective hangover cure remains not getting a hangover in the first place.

I do get annoyed when I have a hangover after just a glass and a half of red wine, but I think I’ll stick to a simple water and pasta day-after routine for my ‘cure’. How about you? If you drink, do you get hangovers? Have any miracle advice other than, you know, not drinking? Let’s hear ‘em in this week’s Shoddy Goods chat.

—Dave (and the rest of Meh)

You can consume as many of these Shoddy Goods stories as you want, without hating yourself in the morning:

• Why isn’t alcohol-free beer cheaper than the real stuff?

• In search of America’s cheapest Michelin-starred meal

• I tried vaping before anybody else you know (probably)