Bee Sting Therapy???

[brandisnif4]

Ok,I was just wondering if anyone has done this or knows of someone that has.  I had a friend send me anarticle about 2 years ago,and at the timemy symptoms weren't so bad so I blew it off.  Then last night Iran into and old friend that has had MS for probably 20 years and we were discussing how all this came about a few weeks after the birth of my daughter etc....  He told me has been doing Bee Sting therapy, and said it is helping him more then the meds did.  He said 20 stings a day. YIKES.  He said I was more then welcome to comeover and discuss it further or give it a try.  I don't know if I could do it.  
Soif you know anything about this please fill me in.
Thanks

[shoshin]

I don't know anything about bee venom therapy, but FWIW my neuro once used it as an example of expensive, useless things not to waste time on.

He also told me what I think was supposed to be a cautionary tale about the power of the placebo effect. Apparently, he saw this woman on TV who had been in a trial for Tsybari. She had been in a wheelchair and pretty badly off, but the trial really turned things around for her. She was walking again and said she got her "old life back." It turned she had been on the placebo.

On the other hand, it seems like there maybe isn't enough research into things like dietary approaches where there isn't a big payoff for the pharmaceutical companies at the end so who knows.

sho

[monotreme]

I have a friend who went off her DMD  (Avonex) to try bee sting therapy.  Six months or so after going off the Avonex, she had a major relapse and ended up in a wheelchair.  She is now diagnosed as RPMS.

Elaine

[brandisnif4]

Thanks so much for your information.  As always you are so good at this!  I am look at it further and talk to my neuro.  Just want to look at my options.
Both of his parents were Dr.s nuero & gp. They have passed on now, but I am wondering if he didn't start this in the 90's when his parents were still alive.  You know, willing to try just about anything!
Thanks again.

[Quixotic1]

Hi, there!  Apitherapy (Bee Venom Therapy) has been around for half a century or so and because the bee venom appears to have an antiinflammatory action on the nerves it has been used with a lot of "anecdotal" success by lots of people.  It is an old part of Chinese traditional medicine for a wide variety of illnesses.

Enthusiasm for it heightened in the mid to late 90's when it was featured on one of the News Magazine TV shows like 60 Minutes.

In the absence of a major allergy to the venom (which can be fatal) the venom appears to be fairly harmless once you develop a tolerance for it.  Do NOT start in at a high dose like your friend's 20 stings a day.  Initially you would have all of the local skin reactions like pain, swelling and itiching of the sting sites.  But, apparently you do develop a tolerance and these subside.

If you look hard you can find lots of people whom it didn't help, but the internet is full of great stories of individual people who claim to have been released from their wheelchairs to again lead normal lives.

There have been two randomized, controlled studies looking at this from what I could find.  The one which publicized results was from the Netherlands and the study was split into two groups.  The first had the bee therapy for the first 6 months and the second had the bee therapy for the 2nd 6 months.  While not on the bee venom no therapy was given.  In this study both groups continued to acrue lesions, relapses and disability both on and off the therapy.  No difference was reported in Quality of Life.  The max bee sting level was 20 stings per week which is quite a bit lower than I see reported in peoples' uncontrolled reports.

The second was started at Georgetown Univ's Immunology Department in 1997.  I can't find any reports of that study being finished.  This might be because it ran out of funding or because they found no benefit and it was unethical to keep people on it.  I don't know.

I do know that some people were attempting to be able to deliver the venom by injection so that the dose could be standardized.  I don't know if that was successful.  Generally people either maintain their own hive and use several dozen bees per week each of which dies after stinging.  Sometimes there is a local apiary (bee keeper - apiast??) who supplies the people in his region with their bees.  Your friend could tell you.

Beings that the venom was being studied intensively by legitimate scientists last time I looked into it (after diagnosing a patient in my practice around 1996) and now we are not hearing anything about it from the scientific community, I suspect it did not pan out scientifically.  But, the practice is clearly being continued.

That's all I know.  I hope it helped.

Quix