Robert Davis woke up one morning in October in Grand Rapids wishing he hadn't. "It feels like somebody is hitting me with a baseball bat in the head," Said Robert, a 60-year-old "work hard, play hard," kind of guy who had knocked back more than a few drinks the night before.

So when he saw an IV clinic – advertised as a hangover cure – later that morning on facebook, he called the mobile IV clinic, remembering the time a friend's wife had gone to the emergency room to get an IV after drinking too much. The 45-minute treatment, which involved an intravenous infusion of vitamin-rich fluids, turned Davis' day around. While that morning, he had sworn off alcohol forever, that night, he hit the town again.

"It was unbelievable," says Davis, who works as a contractor in West Michigan. "Right away, you start feeling it, but 45 minutes later, you feel almost 100 percent – no hangover." He's since been to IV clinics all over and calls RevIVed near-weekly – hungover or not. "It just makes me feel better – it's amazing," he says.

[See: 10 Ways to Cure a Hangover.]

IV therapy has been used for decades in hospitals to treat a range of conditions, from dehydration to nutrient-absorption disorders, but it's increasingly offered at independent clinics and through house call-type services that pledge to help people feel better without clogging already-burdened emergency departments. In addition to unburdening the emergency room, you're paying far less than the thousands o be charged through insurance and hundreds in co-pays. While it may be most buzzed about as a hangover cure in party cities like Las Vegas, New Orleans and Los Angeles, IV therapy is also given to people with migraines, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, as well as those who want a nutritional, athletic, energy, beauty or immunity boost.

"It works because if you look at vitamins and minerals, along with hormones and other chemicals in the body, these are the body’s building blocks; they’re our body’s natural pharmacy, and they’re used in numerous physiological pathways,” says Justin Bing, a nurse who co-founded and directs Biofuse in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “Those pathways get taxed, and that’s why the therapy is amenable to these numerous conditions.”

The contents of the drips vary depending on the patient's aim, but many, including the popular Myers' cocktail, contain magnesium, vitamin C, calcium and some B vitamins. The claim? By delivering a high concentration of vitamins and minerals straight to the bloodstream, the body can reap their benefits more effectively than popping pills, which aren't entirely absorbed through the gastrointestinal tract.

What you put in your body controls how your cells function at the cellular level, and when your cells are working properly, your organs are working properly, and when your organs are working properly and optimally, your overall health improves.

For Alec, a 25 year old whose last name has been kept private, called Biofuse about 3 months ago to help ward fatigue and various stomach issues he'd been experiencing since undergoing large amounts of stress after starting his latest company. Alec regularly consumed 2-3 cups of coffee a day to concentrate and recover from entertaining clients on a regular basis.

"Now I feel really positive about about my day and I know there is less cortisol streaming through my veins" he says. "There was a period there where I was questioning whether it was the right move, but after a week of improved mood and energy, I knew it was the right move!"