Forget coffee, a cold shower or drinking lots of water — there's a new hangover “cure”.
The only catch is that it'll cost about $200 and you'll have to book an appointment for the treatment in NYC, although it is starting to spread to other places.
It consists of 1,000 millilitres of saline solution and electrolyte replacement fluid as well as a selection of nausea, heartburn or anti-inflammatory medication in the form of an IV drip — a nurse sets up the treatment, which can take up to an hour.
While some people who apparently have too much money to waste swear by it, the medical community has not exactly endorsed the new hangover “cure.”
“It's basically just hydrating people,” said David E. Bank, a dermatologist and the founder and director of the Center for Dermatology, Cosmetic & Laser Surgery in Mount Kisco, N.Y., in a New York Times article.
“They infuse a one-litre bag of normal saline — for $200. A bag of normal saline costs $4. It's salt water.”
“There's no scientific support that these treatments do anything,” said Lewis S. Nelson, a toxicologist at NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan in the same article. He believes the treatment's “success” is nothing more than the placebo effect at work.
But even if this alleged hangover cure works, is it really a wise choice?
Binge drinking doesn't just leave people feeling awful the following day as they cope with a splitting headache coupled with a bout of nausea. It also destroys brain cells and the liver. The IV solution might rehydrate a person and improve that individual's state of mind, but it certainly won't reverse the damage suffered by the brain and liver. Once those brain cells are gone, they are gone forever.
This sort of treatment merely enables an over indulging personality.
I knew someone who would plan to have an entire day off to do nothing but recover from a hangover following a party. In other words, he had every intention of drinking well beyond his limit and knew he would need a whole day to recover from the ensuing hangover. And he was actually excited about it!
I could never understand actually going out of my way to plan to have a hangover, let alone look forward to it. That would be like excitedly planning to get sick. It makes no sense.
Don't get me wrong — it's not like I have never gotten carried away a few times over the years and ended up hung-over, but it was never planned well in advance. However, it was always immediately regretted.
Experiencing a brutal hangover should be enough to encourage a person to avoid repeating that mistake — never mind actually planning for it. One can still party, have some drinks, cut loose and have plenty of fun without having to spend the following day bonding with the porcelain god making empty promises to never drink again.
Of all the hangover “cures” out there, the best one is to simply avoid getting one by not drinking too much in the first place.
Simon Ducatel is the editor of the Sundre Round Up.
