Newly disclosed disciplinary records indicate an investigation into an Iowa nurse sanctioned for professional incompetence was sparked by a complaint from a retired physician who questioned the claims of an Ames wellness clinic.
The disciplinary case is one of two involving an array of IV-therapy clinics or spas in central Iowa that offer intravenous delivery of products and have used advanced registered nurse practitioners as their medical directors.
The first of the two cases involves advanced registered nurse practitioner Jennifer Penisten, who is currently taking the Iowa Board of Nursing to court and seeking judicial review of her recent 90-day license suspension.
In her lawsuit, filed under the name “Jennifer Peniston,” she argues the board improperly relied on her alleged confessions to misconduct rather than citing care issues involving specific patients.
Previously undisclosed Board of Nursing records indicate the board became aware of potential issues with Penisten’s practice in August 2023 when a retired physician in Ames, Mark Guffy, contacted the Iowa Board of Pharmacy and filed a written complaint regarding a Story County business called IV Therapy Services, where Penisten served as medical director.
“On their website they promote a number of their products which are given intravenously and for which, I feel, they make fraudulent claims,” Guffy wrote. “I am quite certain that their claims regarding the benefits of their products are not only deceptive (but) frankly fraudulent.”
Guffy said Tuesday his complaint was triggered after he went to his gym and saw a large banner promoting the clinic’s hydration therapy for people with hangovers.
“The banner said something to the effect of, ‘If you’re dehydrated after a night of drinking, we offer hydration therapy,’” Guffy said. “And I thought, ‘My gosh, this is a college town and you’re promoting this? This is crazy.’”
During its investigation, the Board of Nursing focused not on the products and services that sparked Guffy’s complaint, but on the nurse-licensing issues that fall more squarely within its jurisdiction.
In 2021, the board had accused Penisten of allowing a nurse to use her prescription authority to order Botox and dermal fillers. It also accused her of failing to see the patients who received the treatments, and failing to give direction on how to administer the drugs.
To resolve that disciplinary case, Penisten had entered into a settlement with the board, agreeing to see all patients for initial assessments and to provide treatment orders that were patient-specific.
As part of its 2024 investigation of the physician’s complaint, the board ultimately concluded Penisten had continued to engage in prohibited practices. It suspended her license for 90 days, leading to her court filing seeking judicial review of the board’s actions.
IV Therapy Services offered ‘alternative care’
During a December 2023 meeting with registered nurse Lauren Pearson, who owned IV Therapy Services, a Board of Nursing investigator asked Pearson about the launch of the business.
According to the investigators’ notes of the meeting, Pearson explained that she had contacted the Iowa boards of pharmacy, nursing and medicine before opening her clinic and “each person told her that it was a new business idea and a grey area.”
According to the board, clients would schedule appointments through the IV Therapy Services website and receive a health history and consent form to fill out and return. The consent form, according to the board, included an acknowledgment by the client that the services being provided were “alternative care and not considered medical treatment.”
Upon arrival for the appointment, the client and a staff nurse would decide which “IV cocktail” recipe the patient would receive based on symptoms and the client’s own requests. The nurse would then administer the drugs through a set of standing orders and protocols approved by Penisten in her role as medical director, the board claimed.
Vivid Life Spa, Vivid IV and Vivid Mobile Solutions launched
The board records indicate that in addition to her work for IV Therapy Services, Penisten opened her own aesthetics practices, Vivid Life Spa, in November of 2021 and served as the medical director there and at a separate entity she didn’t own called Vivid IV.
The board records also show Penisten launched a separate Des Moines business called Vivid Mobile Solutions that offered what she called “mobile IV vitamin infusions.”
Vivid IV’s website, board investigators noted, promoted “complementary cancer therapy.” The website currently advertises the therapy with prices starting at $129 per treatment.
The therapy is advertised as including high doses of vitamin C, which it says “produces hydrogen peroxide which is directly toxic to the cancer cells,” plus treatment with mistletoe that “can contribute to cancer cell death.”
The newly disclosed board records show that during a February 2024 interview with a board investigator, Penisten was asked about so-called “Botox parties” that may have been staged by Vivid IV.
“I informed her that I saw where Vivid IV was also performing Botox parties,” the investigator wrote. “I asked if she saw these clients prior to the administration of the Botox. At this point, Ms. Penisten stated she hesitates to say any more. She stated I was asking about Ms. Pearson, and now I’m asking about Vivid, and she can see how it correlates, but also doesn’t want to say any more, and feels she may need an attorney.”
Penisten was first licensed in Iowa in 2006 as a registered nurse. She is also a licensed advanced practice nurse prescriber in the state of Wisconsin, as well as in Iowa.
‘Imminent danger’ alleged by Live Hydration Spa
Earlier this year, the Iowa Board of Nursing charged the former medical director of another Ames health spa, unrelated to Penisten’s businesses, with wrongdoing.
The board accused advanced registered nurse practitioner Antoinette Thompson of Pleasant Hill with failing to evaluate, document or report the status of a patient; committing an act that might adversely affect a patient’s welfare; misappropriating medications or supplies of a patient; being involved in the unauthorized manufacture or distribution of a controlled substance; prescribing, dispensing or distributing drugs in an unsafe manner; prescribing, dispensing or distributing drugs without accurately documenting the act or without evaluating the patient; willful or repeated failure to practice nursing with reasonable skill and safety, and failure to query and reviewing the Prescription Monitoring Program database prior to prescribing or dispending of an opioid.
The Board of Nursing has not publicly disclosed the manner in which any of those regulations were allegedly violated or indicated when or where the alleged violations took place.
Court records indicate Thompson served as the medical director and nurse for the Live Hydration Spa in Ames until she was terminated when the business closed in September 2024.
According to a court petition filed by Live Hydration, Thompson’s termination was based on her “actions resulting in imminent danger to patient health and safety.”
The company has also alleged Thompson violated her franchise agreement with Live Hydration by opening a competing business that offered IV vitamin therapy, injections, hormone replacement therapy and Botox treatments.
Thompson denied all of the company’s allegations, and is now suing Live Hydration for breach of contract and defamation, alleging the company tried to “starve” her franchise and mount a hostile takeover of the Ames location — charges the company denies.
A trial is scheduled for Dec. 15, 2026. A hearing on Thompson’s disciplinary charges was scheduled for Oct. 10, 2025, but no board decision in the matter had been made public as of Nov. 12, 2025.
