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IV THERAPY PROVIDES AN INFUSION OF VITAMINS AND MINERALS FOR HEALTH & ENERGY

written by LAURA BAILEY photography by DANIEL SULLIVAN

ABOUT SIX MONTHS AGO, Robin Mahler was suffering from low energy and it was having an impact on her usually busy, active life. She knew her body well enough to know something wasn’t right, so she turned to the physicians at Yellowstone Naturopathic Clinic for help.

After a consultation and blood work, they recommended she try IV therapy, a fast-acting intravenous infusion of vitamins and minerals. The mix included high doses of Vitamin C, Vitamin B, calcium, and magnesium in a solution of sterile water. Mahler started out with two infusions in two weeks and felt better immediately. Since then, she’s come in for IV therapy whenever she starts to feel run down and fatigued.

“This has been a game changer for me,” she said. “I feel like I’m back to myself again.”

She spends about 45 minutes in the chair for each treatment, and because the vitamins and minerals are pushed into the bloodstream and bypass the liver filtration system and bowels, the vitamins and minerals go to work immediately.

“People can expect to feel better right away and the effects last for about a week. Some will feel it longer,” said Dr. Autumn Dugas, a physician at the Yellowstone Naturopathic Clinic who oversees the IV therapy program.

Her patients come to her with a number of health concerns. Many are suffering from low energy, brain fog and chronic fatigue, and others look to IV therapy for immune support. It’s helpful for those suffering from Covid and long Covid, and it can be used as a preventative for people who plan to travel. For some people, a dose of magnesium has also proven to be an effective treatment for migraines.

“IV therapy can also be a part of treatment for any chronic illness as a way to support other treatments,” says Dr. Kaila Sellars, who is also a physician at Yellowstone Naturopathic Clinic.

The IV that Mahler received is the Myer’s Cocktail, which was developed in the 1970s. Each one-liter bag is mixed on site for each patient, and depending on the patient’s needs, other minerals and vitamins can be added. For example, glutathione, a powerful antioxidant, is often added for patients who need healing support. There are several ways to take IV therapy. It’s offered in a “push,” which usually takes less than an hour, or a gravity drip, which can take up to three hours. IV therapy is safe for most people, except for those who have blood pressure issues.

At Yellowstone Naturopathic Clinic, patients must have bloodwork done and have a consultation with a physician prior to IV therapy to be sure their symptoms can’t be attributed to something serious. They also discuss medications and supplements that may have an impact on their health as well.

“It’s medically driven and specific to each patient,” Sellars says.

Yellowstone Naturopathic Clinic has been offering IV therapy for more than 20 years, but recently, Sellars and Dugas have seen in uptick in interest in IV therapy. Because the procedure is fast-acting and safe for most people, the procedure is growing in popularity nationwide. In the Billings area, it is offered at several medical spas, including Vitality Medical and Wellness Center.

Vitality Medical and Wellness Center opened two years ago and has provided IV therapy since it opened. Melissa Fuller, a nurse practitioner and medical director at Vitality, oversees IV therapy there. The center offers a variety of cocktails, with the immunity and wellness blend being the most popular. They also offer a blend for weight management, radiant skin and stress relief, as well as an infusion of prenatal vitamins for expectant mothers.

Athletes can come in for pre- and post-workout cocktails to help them with performance and recovery. Vitality also offers hangover remedies for a quick recovery after a night or weekend of overdoing it.

Because the cocktails are administered with 1,000 milliliters of water, they not only deliver the positive effects of vitamins and minerals, they offer instant hydration, which also provides great benefits.

“It’s better and faster than just drinking water,” Fuller says. Vitality’s clients are not the only ones who swear by IV therapy. Fuller also takes them.

“When I’m feeling the sniffles or feeling run down, I will get an IV and I never get sick,” Fuller says.

While most everyone can benefit from a boost of vitamins and minerals and the hydration an IV offers, Dugas and Sellars are on the lookout for what might be causing the symptoms that drive people to consider IV therapy. It may take a few IVs to get someone’s health back on track and an occasional IV to maintain good health, but a need for more frequent IV use is cause for concern.

For Mahler, the occasional IV therapy boost is all she needs to maintain a steady, adequate energy level. She’s glad to have the support of the physicians at Yellowstone Naturopathic Clinic and has encouraged others to give IV therapy a try.

“Talk to your doctor first,” Mahler says. “There’s so many options that you need to be sure you are getting exactly what you need.” ✻

by KAREN GROSZ

AS I PULLED INTO the car wash today, I noticed the attendant, not because he did a fancy dance while wielding the spray gun, not because he was dressed like a blow-up dinosaur, he wasn’t, nor was it because he even acknowledged me — the woman embarrassed to be in a car with a disproportionate amount of road grime on it. I noticed him because he looked like sadness if it had been packaged and branded. His mouth was downturned, his eyes never met mine and if he had ever smiled, it was not in the last year or 10. He broke my heart.

The best exercise I get is jumping to conclusions, and so I decided, before I’d really taken him in, that he probably immigrated to the U.S., that this was the only job he could get, that he mourned the people he left behind and the life of the high-powered executive he lived there. His sadness permeated me and if I wouldn’t have caused a scene, I would have gotten out and given him a hug — not a side one either, but a real, honest, 20-second or more, life-affirming hug. I think he needed it.

I would also have told him how much his work, the degriming of my humble white rig, meant to me. On the way there, I had been daydreaming about a full-time, do-all-thethings life assistant. I envisioned someone to run my car through the wash, pair the socks and keep our fridge stocked with well-prepped vegetables. This person would not only do what I don’t want to do but he or she would also do these things before I even knew I wanted them done. Now that is a daydream worth sinking into. While I don’t have that assistant (yet), I do have, as do you, countless people who show up, every single day, to serve me.

They are in the post office, the grocery store, the power plant, the offices, salons, schools, hospitals, and doggy day cares of our life. They are humble, faithful and, for the most part, dedicated to making whatever I am doing, better. They sit through customer service training, absorb ridiculous amounts of abuse, and make way less than they are worth, in every single category. They wash my windows, clean my carpets, sweep my streets and serve my food, almost always with a smile. And, if I’m being honest, with not nearly enough family in ZooMontana’s 14thzoomontana.org Chase December Finals Montana. Memorial during appreciation on my part. Thinking about this made me stop and reflect on how I show up for them. to have breakfast in his favorite café. Often, as dad aged, it was the only meal he wanted to eat. Now, my dad was one of those men that’s just handsome enough to look interesting, just funny enough to be endearing and just kind enough to seem like he was worth kindness in return. Dad would give any person anything they asked for — from his coat to his last piece of toast. When we moved him to a nursing home, we thought it was for a few days, maybe even just hours. As we sat, crying, wringing our hands, dad’s favorite server showed up with his favorite breakfast.

I try to offer a genuine thank you. I try to look them in the eye and I try to make their day just a bit brighter, with appreciation or a nice tip. But I wondered what it’s really like to serve, especially in the restaurant world. I’ve seen it and I bet you have too — the restaurant customers who demand attention, offer nothing but complaints and leave a mess. I asked a few women what it’s like to be a server now and what I found is that the stories I love to tell of the server who said, “Oh honey, can’t you just cut that end off?” when I showed her the rotten end of my baked potato or the one who told me, “I gave you lots of chips because we’re trying to get rid of them, they’re stale,” are the exceptions to the rule.

Beauty & the Beast

Billings Studio Theatre presents “Disney’s Beauty and the Beast Junior,” January 10th-13th. Brainy and beautiful Belle yearns to escape her narrow and restricted life including her brute of a suitor, Gaston. Belle gets adventurous and as a result becomes a captive in the Beast’s enchanted castle! Dancing flatware, menacing wolves and singing furniture fill the stage with thrills during this beloved fairy tale about very different people finding strength in one another as they learn how to love.billingsstudiotheatre.com

He did it again the next day, and the next. And then, as dad broke all of the predictions, he was treated to this breakfast he didn’t pay for, again and again and again, for several years.

The servers I spoke with LOVE their jobs. They LOVE their repeat customers, feeling like they are family, and they couldn’t imagine doing life any other way. One server, Sara, told me that when her customer didn’t show up two days in a row, she called for a welfare check. The customer was sitting on the floor, unable to move because of a stroke. Another receives, every single year, the nicest, most thoughtful birthday gift, from the man who only tips a quarter for his daily coffee.

F R inge Festiva L

Venture Theatre presents its Fringe Festival, January 18th-19th and 25th-26th.The festival features four nights of shows featuring local and regional performing artists of all types including dance, standup comedy, theater improv, one act plays, musicals, performance art, spoken word/poetry, and puppetry.venturetheatre.org

Who does that? Well, a server. This person who may not have dreamed that someday they would fill the role they are in, but by damn is going to do it in a way that makes them matter to the world. They are going to laugh at bad jokes they’ve heard dozens of times, slap straying hands and fill out paperwork when we don’t know how. They are going to watch over us because they have servants’ hearts and they know, at least I hope they know, that our world would be smaller, less fun, without them in it, doing what they do.

s ou L s t R eet d an C e

Joy told me that she prays for a handicapped child, who was berated by his dad, over and over and over, during a nice dinner out. She can’t get the little boy out of her head, even years later. Joy is also the server who told me that when she worked in a restaurant frequented by exhausted road warriors, her one goal was to make them smile. She did it not by flashing an empty grin or pulling a quarter from behind their ear. She did it by asking them about their hometown or if they were headed fishing. She did it by showing that she saw them, that they mattered. She always got the smile.

This high energy show comes to the Alberta Bair Theater on January 19th and presents a new era in dance, while pushing the artistic boundaries of street dance. Soul Street concerts consist of a mix of movement that will keep you at the edge of your seat. The music is combined with an electric mix ranging from hip-hop to classical. It’s a show that will make you laugh and keep audiences of all ages entertained.

If I were truly a kind person, the kind of kind person I should be, I’d go back to the car wash tomorrow, learn my sad friend’s name and shower him with praise, making sure his boss knew my car was cleaner than I thought it would be and my load was lighter because of his diligence with the spray wand. While I probably won’t do that and I don’t have a life assistant to do it either, I am going to be like Joy and pray for him tonight and tomorrow night too. While I’m at it, I will add Jimmy, and Ja, Ryan, Britney, and Tara, and Lynn, and Sarah, and, and, and so many others who make my life better because of their work. It’s the very least that I can do. ✻

a Con C e R t F o R the w ho L e Fami Ly

Isn’t that beautiful? Being a server isn’t just about the clean car or the warm meal. It’s about human connection. It’s about this journey that we take together, from the delivery room to morgue and every stop in between that is filled, absolutely filled, with those who act with kind hearts and big smiles to make sure we, as they often say, “have a nice day.”

This was especially true when my dad was in a nursing home. My dad, for years, had gotten up at 5:30 a.m. and walked about a mile

Billings Symphony presents its Family Concert on January 26th at the Alberta Bair Theater. Four time Grammy nominees, “Trout Fishing in America,” will perform along with the Billings Symphony. Trout Fishing in America is a musical duo which performs folk rock and children’s music. billingssymphony.com

Karen Grosz is a local Team and Leadership Development coach and motivational speaker. She owns Canvas Creek Team Building, is the author of “What’s Next” and “Quiet Leadership” and founding voice of the Facebook group “I’ll Help”- Billings. You can find more from Karen at karengrosz.life.

By Karen Grosz