Bee Therapy

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You enter a sterile room.  You wince as a misstep triggers a spasm of pain.  You take off all your clothes and put on the hospital gown that is there waiting for you.  A smiling doctor enters the room followed by a very efficient, pretty nurse.  You notice a distant sound.  Then you hear the doctor speaking…

“It’s an old technology.  Centuries old. As old as using leeches or maggots.”

Suddenly you wish your doctor was not quite so historical and not quite so informative.  You feel sick to your stomach.  The buzzing sound gets louder as two strapping young men wearing spacey looking outfits come in  carrying something hidden and buzzing in a cage.

“Who are those guys?  What are you going to do?”  You shout.

“Actually,” the doctor begins,” the two gentlemen are here to hold you down.  I could have carried in the bees myself.”

“BEES?”

Well, no doctor short of the quacks who cut up Michael Jackson’s face and killed him in his sleep would have a bedside manner like our Dr Frankenstein above, but bee therapy is real and has been around for awhile.

Bee therapy is called apitherapy.  It can involve the use of honey, bee venom or anything that comes from bees and beehives.  Actually using bees to sting willing patients has been used in the treatment of arthritis and muscular sclerosis.  Some treatments require that the patient be stung hundreds of times over the course of four or five days. 

Like much of alternative medicine there are more anecdotal tales of it’s effectiveness than scientific trials.  The trials that have been done suggest that the therapy may not be useful against muscular sclerosis.  Some proponents still point to studies which seem to show effectiveness of apitherapy on reducing the pain and inflation of arthritis.

Despite the lack of clinical, peer reviewed studies, it is easy to find web sites that tout the virtues of bee therapy and give a long list of conditions and ailments that are treated such as gout, bursitis, tendinitis, Lyme disease, Lupus, Shingles, sciatica, tumors, and surgical scars.

Some say that the bee stings act like acupuncture and that the stings therefore need to be at specific sites on the body.  Others say that the stings stimulate natural chemical and physical reactions in the body so that except for localized injuries the sting site is less important.

For those averse to or even allergic to bee stings there are alternative therapy pharmaceutical companies that sell the venom in injectable, pill, jell, lotion, liniment, or embrocating form.

See your doctor before entering upon any course of therapy.