Winter Haven IV Bar Goes Far Beyond Hangover Remedies With a Focus on Wellness
by TERESA SCHIFFER
photos by JESSICA McDONALD
There’s a new bar in Winter Haven, and this one won’t have you holding your head with regret in the morning! This bar specializes in wellness and hydration, so after a visit you’ll feel better than before and your body will thank you for the TLC. What is this place serving that has customers raving? Intravenous infusions of vital nutrients and fluids.
Nurse practitioner Shelby Jones opened the doors of New You in May of this year, and she’s already established a reputation as a trusted provider of this type of treatment.
“I have been a nurse for over 10 years, and I worked at Winter Haven Hospital in the MICU for the first part of my nursing career,” Jones says of her medical background. “When I graduated with my master’s and became board-certified as a Nurse Practitioner, I worked mobile and I did assisted living, nursing homes, and hospice.”
Jones enjoyed her work, but she was troubled by the way some physicians handled their patients’ health issues.
“Especially with Covid, it became obvious to me that a lot of people’s physicians are pushing mainstream meds. They’re doing a lot of, ‘Take a pill for this, take a pill for that,’ and I don’t like that,” explains Jones. “The other thing is, during COVID, insurance companies cracked down on a lot of guidelines on what was approved and what wasn’t, so I found myself spending a lot more time fighting insurance companies for approval of things than actually caring for people.”
Jones prefers a more holistic approach to health, focusing on wellness over illness. That’s the philosophy behind New You and its menu of “cocktails” — combinations of vitamins and minerals designed to hydrate and heal the body.
“We have customizable IV bags that we can customize for you based on your conditions, your symptoms, your lab values, any of those things,” Jones describes. “Oral vitamins are only absorbed about 30 percent through your GI tract, so a lot of people are wasting tons of money on vitamins and supplements that your body isn’t even absorbing. However, if you do it intravenously, it’s pretty much 80 to 90 percent absorbed through your bloodstream.”
The infusions offered at New You can be designed for each person’s individual needs and preferences. Some are used as preventive health maintenance or beauty treatments, while others are created to help patients who live with chronic health conditions, are recovering from invasive procedures, or who are undergoing physically harsh treatments such as chemotherapy.
“We have a lot of post-bariatric surgery patients,” says Jones. “Certain vitamins are absorbed through your GI tract and in your stomach, so now you have a quarter of the stomach that you did, so your food doesn’t sit there and you can’t eat the same amount, so your body is not absorbing the vitamins it needs to.”
Many people are already deficient in various micronutrients, and those who live with chronic conditions that affect the digestive system, such as IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) or Crohn’s disease, can be even more greatly impacted by vitamin deficiencies.
“This is like giving your body a boost without having to take a prescribed pill for it,” Jones summarizes of the treatments she offers.
The New You menu includes a smorgasbord of optional add-ons to create the perfect mix of nutrients for a particular client. Ingredients such as alpha-lipoic acid, L arginine, biotin, L glutamine, magnesium, and more are offered so clients can add or subtract from a formula as desired in order to get their ideal blend.
“Glutathione is a super powerful antioxidant,” Jones says of one of the popular add-on options. “It’s great for cell recovery, mitochondrial rebuilding, if you have damaged cells from any illness, inflammation, chemo, the common cold, anything. It helps your cells regenerate. It helps restructure your broken cells, the ones that have already been attacked. It also detoxes your liver.”
Jones says Glutathione also has been proven to help with blood sugar levels, which makes it a good option for diabetics because it will help lower their blood sugar without having to take metformin or a glipizide.
“You’re not going to be off your meds completely, but it is going to give you an alternate therapy to just having to take a prescribed medication,” she says.
IV treatments take about 45 minutes. If you’re pressed for time or just don’t like the idea of getting an IV, New You offers an alternative.
“We do injections, too, like B12, weight loss, and vitamin D. Pretty much any of our IVs can be mixed into a shot if you don’t want an IV, but you don’t get the same benefit from it just because of the volume of it,” Jones says.
These treatments are generally not covered by insurance, so Jones aims to keep the prices reasonable. IV infusions start at $140 for Quench or Reboot, two formulas that primarily rehydrate and detoxify the body. The Myers Cocktail, at $175, is the most inclusive IV premix, containing magnesium, B-complex vitamins, calcium, vitamin C, and more. Its benefits include hydration, improved immunity, reduction in chronic pain, and migraine relief. Injections range from $30 to $80.
In addition to the IV cocktails and customizable injections, New You also offers some cosmetic treatments, like Botox and other neurotoxins to smooth wrinkles, and dermal fillers to add volume to sagging jowls and plump up the lips.
