Intravenous delivery of nutrients and medications has long been recognized as the most effective way of rapidly delivering those things when urgent need arises. While some substances can be absorbed into the blood stream through the skin, across the gut lining or through the lungs, intravenous delivery assures they will get into the blood in predictable, measurable amounts. Some things, such as the mineral magnesium or vitamin C cause diarrhea in any significant amounts taken into the gut. There are many situations that alter the ability of the gut to effectively absorb nutrients, slowly causing deficiency of important nutrients. It is possible to restore good nutrition by relying on natural mechanisms, but this is not entirely reliable and is usually very slow.

After appropriate testing to identify nutritional deficiencies, we frequently restore nutritional state by giving intravenous amino acids for protein malnutrition and vitamins and minerals for those deficiencies. There is supportive medical literature which indicates elective surgery patients recover better and faster with intravenous nutritional support. Higher doses of some nutrients are sometime used as medicines and some medications are also given intravenously. These include such things as vitamin C to help control viral infections, the mineral magnesium to minimize muscle spasms, glutathione for Parkinson’s disease as well as chelating agents.

The latter have long been used for removal of various toxic substances, particularly heavy metals such as lead, mercury and cadmium. Toxic exposures are much more common in our society than usually realized and flushing toxins from the system is often a necessary part of restoring normal function. While there is a huge amount of anecdotal information supporting chelation as treatment for arterial disease, this remains controversial. We believe chelation does help in this situation and offer it to patients who seek it after being sure they are aware of the associated controversy.