The article is about them being unnecessary unless absolutely humongous amounts of rehydration are necessary (emergency rehydration), "modern" oral rehydration is amply sufficient, cheaper, simpler, and less risky (ORS requires clean water but IV requires aseptic fluid and procedure and even then there's a risk of infection).

The (possibly apocryphal) article also went into modern educational efforts in rural India, where people were being taught the proper handfuls of sugar and salt to add to water, to combat cholera there.

Also interesting, the presence or absence of necessity was not at all a factor in my usage. I elected to pay a bunch of money for what was certainly an 'unnecessary' use of an I.V. with a goal of enhancing well-being/accelerating recovery time.

In the context of opt-in usage: not in a hospital full of sick people and disease, where provider can simply refuse to offer any service to patients if risk factors are present, with ability to pay premium market-based prices for supplies/storage since its an upscale opt-in product ... I would imagine the actual complication rate from such opt-in usages are likely to be lower than would result from unnecessary uses in a hospital environment... (Or perhaps this line of reasoning is simply me trying to rationalize this unnecessary behavior to myself -- regardless of the lack of necessity in a hospital setting, I still think I might opt-in to this treatment again from time to time ...)

When I commented about unnecessary, I wasn't commenting about the goal but the means. You get the same benefits from ORT as you get from IV rehydration[0], at lower risk, and lower cost.

> In the context of opt-in usage: not in a hospital full of sick people and disease, where provider can simply refuse to offer any service to patients if risk factors are present, with ability to pay premium market-based prices for supplies/storage since its an upscale opt-in product …

Also not in a hospital full of professionals used to aseptic procedures and products.

> I would imagine the actual complication rate from such opt-in usages are likely to be lower than would result from unnecessary uses in a hospital environment…

I would imagine the opposite.

> I still think I might opt-in to this treatment again from time to time …

Or you could use regular ORT and get the same benefits. But it's your health and money so you do you.

[0] again unless it's a case of emergency rehydration, or the patient is unable to drink, obviously

Now, however, I think you might be guilty of extending the argument beyond its original domain in pursuit of snarkiness. Is it your claim that an IV is useful for no purposes beyond rehydration? It’s certainly possible to include other substances in the iv which are rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream.

It seems to me like studies showing suitability of ORT to rehydration wouldn’t necessarily offer insight into these other uses ...?

Also regarding complication likelihood — I think your argument glosses over the fact that the sheer complexity of the hospital environment introduces all sorts of incidental complexity not present in a simpler context. A “factory” that does one thing is much easier to optimize (including to optimize for safety) than a place like a hospital which has to house the entire complexity of the full medical process.

In Taiwan, it used to be a thing to get vitamin B shots all the time for no good reason. The placebo affect was probably involved. It turns out that the vitamins were almost certainly useless, but some 90% of the population got Hepatitis B. Guess who didn't sterilize everything properly?

I would stay the fuck away from quacks who want to inject magic solutions. At least the detox crowd just drinks that stuff.

Also, jeez, for the cost of one of those infusions, you can drink a lot of delicious, potassium-loaded fresh coconut water, even at restaurant prices.

Unless you are vomiting, unconscious or potentially going into surgery, using an IV to administer the fluid is unnecessary.