Dr. Jason Burke, M.D., preps Ciera Clark for an vitamin injection at the Hangover Heaven IV Hydration clinic Monday, Sept. 16, 2019.
Saturday, Dec. 28, 2019 | 2 a.m.
Anyone who has ever spent a weekend drinking and felt the residual effects of ethanol in their system has probably yearned for instant relief that goes beyond popping an Advil or nursing a Gatorade.
Dr. Jason Burke, owner of Hangover Heaven IV Hydration, says that while hangovers tend to be self-inflicted, it doesn’t make them a lesser medical condition. “I’ve always thought hangovers were a poorly addressed issue in the medical field,” he said. “Basically, the best medical professionals would come up with was Gatorade. For as pervasive a problem as it is, I thought [the solution] was pretty weak.”
Dr. Jason Burke, M.D., poses for a portrait with a vitamin IV bag at the Hangover Heaven IV Hydration clinic Monday, Sept. 16, 2019.
In Las Vegas, intravenous therapy for hangovers has been booming since Burke started his business administering IV treatments on a 45-foot bus in 2012. He remembers seeing a few other “fly-by-night people who were just giving bags of saline” at the time—a practice, he said, that is not very effective for treating hangovers. “A bag of saline, especially for a 40-year-old with a bad hangover, is going to do very little.”
A common misconception is that hangovers are mainly caused by dehydration, Burke explains. In reality, there’s much more going on. “Everything in the [IV solution] addresses the main components of the hangover, which is inflammation—mostly in the brain—oxidation and then the dehydration,” he says. “We give people medications that directly deal with nausea and dehydration. We also give them an anti-inflammatory and intravenous antioxidants.”
Hangover Heaven IV Hydration—located on Highland Avenue, two blocks west of the Strip—provides intravenous therapy not just for those looking to cure their hangovers, but also for patients like Ciera Clark, who receives IV vitamin therapy for her B12 deficiency.
Clark, who has been visiting Hangover Heaven once a month for the past two years, says she typically feels better within 30 minutes of receiving treatment.
It’s Monday morning, and most of Burke’s staff is visiting the surrounding hotels on house calls. In-room treatments have a $100 house call fee in addition to the price of the treatment, according to Hangover Heaven’s website, an affordable price for Burke’s clientele. “Most people think it’s 21-year-olds coming here for spring break. That’s not exactly our clients,” he says. “Our average client is staying at Wynn, Aria, Encore—with an average income of well over $100,000 a year.”
• • •
While most of Burke’s clients are well-off enough to front the cost of a house call to their hotel room, those on a tighter budget can get a treatment at Hangover Heaven, which starts at $199.
A lounge area inside the business, with recliner chairs for patients, is decorated with Las Vegas memorabilia posters. A cardboard cutout of Zach Galifianakis’ character from The Hangover—wearing a Golden Knights jersey—is displayed in the corner.
Burke, a licensed anesthesiologist, says he’s been called “too serious,” so he tries to walk a fine line between playful and professional as a “hangover specialist.” Still, he takes hangovers very seriously, treating them like he would any other medical procedure.
• • •
Though IV therapy has gained popularity and notoriety in recent years, it isn’t exactly a new area of medicine. It’s really just urgent care repackaged into something new, Burke says.
“People try to make it out that this is some new area of medicine that has its own set of regulations, when that is tacitly untrue. It’s no different if someone has food poisoning” and they’re given fluids as part of their treatment, according to Burke.
Still, the industry remains vastly unregulated. All it takes to open an IV therapy business in Las Vegas is a Clark County business license—no background check required—and a nurse practitioner or a physician to act as the prescribing provider (i.e., someone who can write a prescription). “There are no regulatory hurdles at all,” Burke says.
That has opened the door for some operators to take advantage of the unregulated industry. Paul Edwards, general counsel for the state’s pharmacy board, says his group has received about a dozen complaints in the past 18 months involving IV therapy clinics in Las Vegas. Most involve unlicensed caregivers prescribing medication, or procedures being conducted by registered nurses before a doctor-patient relationship has been established.
In March, the board reprimanded Dr. Raanan Pokroy of Reviv, which has three locations in hotels along the Strip, for violating a state statute by allowing his staff access to drugs without a practitioner’s supervision. Pokroy’s staff also prescribed medication to patients without him even seeing any of his patients, also illegal under state law.
Dr. Adam Nadelson, who is affiliated with IV Doc, which has locations around the world and in Las Vegas, was reprimanded by the medical board in Louisiana for allowing nurses and medical assistants to practice medicine without a license.
Dr. Kiarash Mirkia, former director of Reset IV, currently has two lawsuits pending, one involving the death of a patient at Spring Valley Hospital, and another regarding an incident in which he allegedly raped a woman at his wellness center on Rainbow Boulevard.
Clark says she has experienced “unprofessionalism” at other businesses offering IV services. “They just seemed like they didn’t know what they were doing.”
• • •
Last month, Clark County discussed drafting an ordinance to regulate the IV therapy industry at a county level, requiring business owners to register IV therapy under a privileged business license. “The thought would be that before the service is approved, there would be some sort of checklist and hopefully a process where an inspector would visit the site to approve the business license,” County Commissioner Tick Segerblom said.
Burke says he worries that if the system remains unchecked, people’s lives could be at risk. He says he has been working since 2017 with various regulatory boards and the county to “raise the bar” in the industry. He hopes a privileged business license will be the first step in that process.
“At least the threat to the public would be dealt with in a quicker fashion,” he says.
This story appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.
