Bee Therapy
Cowboy
Copyright 2003 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
July 28, 2003 Monday Five Star Late Lift Edition
Pamela Selbert Special To The Post-Dispatch
* An area woman uses bee-sting therapy to help conditions ranging from
arthritis to multiple sclerosis, but the practice remains outside of the
medical mainstream.
Using long-handled tweezers, apitherapist Mary Reed reaches into a glass jar
where half a dozen honeybees buzz contentedly on a piece of moist paper and
extracts one of the little critters.
Holding the bee by its midsection, Reed, 61, who lives on a 40-acre farm
outside Farmington, Mo., positions it over a joint in her finger where
arthritis has been bothering her. Gently, Reed squeezes the bee with the
tweezers, and the insect performs as if on cue, plunging its stinger home
squarely into the joint, injecting a little shot of venom. Then, released
from the tweezers, the bee soars away, although it will die soon, Reed says.
The stinger and muscular venom sac (without which the bee can't live)
continue to pulse on her finger for about five minutes.
"You leave it in till it stops moving, in order to get all the venom into
the bloodstream," says Reed. "The more venom, the more effective the
treatment."
Reed is practicing apitherapy, a treatment that has been used since ancient
times. The bee venom injection "elevates the level of cortisol in the body
and can be used instead of a cortisone shot, which is not only expensive but
may have negative side effects," she says.
The venom provides immediate relief from arthritis pain, she says, and is
also effective for treating multiple sclerosis.
But Dr. John P. Atkinson, chairman for the Arthritis Foundation in St.
Louis, a certified rheumatologist and professor of medicine at Washington
University, says apitherapy is an unproven treatment that has never been
scientifically validated.
"Now that we have more effective therapies for rheumatoid arthritis we no
longer hear much about this type of therapy," says Atkinson. "I would
strongly urge patients with arthritis or MS to be treated in standard
fashion."
Reed says she decided to try the treatment after watching a video by
apitherapy advocate Pat Wagner of Massachusetts, an MS patient who had been
bedridden and unable to talk. Bee-sting therapy, delivered on acupuncture
points around her body, had enabled her to walk with a cane, she says.
Wagner also regained her ability to speak and is a "living testimony" to the
effectiveness of the therapy, Reed says.
She insists she is not "practicing medicine," because apitherapy has not
been approved by the American Medical Association. But she offers the
"natural remedy" to anyone who wants it, occasionally just providing the bee
and allowing the person to sting himself or herself. Either way, her
services are free.
"Bees as healers"
Reed says her interest in "bees as healers" began more than 25 years ago,
when her husband, Harry, was suffering from allergies to ragweed and other
plants. Research led her to New York beekeeper Charles Mraz's book "Health
and the Honeybee," and to Vermont physician D.C. Jarvis' "Folk Medicine,"
where she discovered apitherapy and the benefits of eating "unprocessed,
unstrained local honey." (The honey must be local in order to immunize you
to the plants in your area, Reed says.)
"I read that a daily regimen of honey can clear up allergies," she says. "So
in 1976 I became a beekeeper with two hives -- I now have three." She became
a member of the Parkland Beekeepers Association (and has served as its
president), the Missouri State Beekeepers Association and the Apitherapy
Society, and has attended and hosted numerous seminars.
Reed began substituting honey for sugar in cooking, and she and her husband
started a daily routine of drinking two teaspoons each of honey and apple
cider vinegar stirred into a half-cup of warm water. Within a couple of
years, she says, her husband's allergies had disappeared.
Reed says honey, "an immediate energy source at the very least," also offers
a variety of other benefits. Apitherapy expert Mihaly Simics, author of "Bee
Venom: Exploring the Healing Power," and Mraz tout the healing power of
honey in their books. They say it can help lower cholesterol and blood
pressure; soothe ulcers, irritation of the esophagus and other digestive
problems "because it is so easily absorbed"; and even regulate the body's
metabolism (making weight loss easier) and enhance the immune system.
Reed also believes honey can take the place of antibiotics, and she provides
her milk cows with daily doses.
"Honey is a natural ... proven treatment for so many ailments," she says.
"We need to get back to remedies that help the body heal itself without side
effects."
Reed says she has no formal training in apitherapy other than studying the
work of Mraz, "the father of bee-sting therapy," and other apitherapists and
attending lectures. Because the therapy is most effective when stings are
given on acupuncture points, she says, she turned for advice to chiropractor
Douglas Wright of Hillsboro Sports Medicine, whose practice includes
chiropractic, acupuncture and acupressure.
Nerve stimulus
Acupuncture points, of which the human body has about 500, are "myo-neural
junctions where motor nerves go into muscle" and transmission of impulses
occurs, Wright explains.
Certain illnesses, such as multiple sclerosis, "decrease electrical activity
as scar tissue builds up," he adds.
"Nerve firing improves with pressure, more when a needle is inserted, still
more when you add electricity to the needle," says Wright. "But when you
take it one step further and add bee venom, you get yet more stimulus."
Wright said the half-dozen MS patients he has referred to Reed "had
exhausted every other avenue when they came to me," and all have "responded
well to the apitherapy."
Analgesic and anti-inflammatory bee venom softens scar tissue on the
patient's central nervous system and enhances healing, he says.
"The effect is quick, and within minutes patients who are mostly
wheelchair-bound are able to stand better," he says. "Effects change from
patient to patient, but can be long-lasting."
Wright adds that there can be risks involved in the treatment if a patient
is allergic to bee venom. About 2 percent of the population "will have a
histamine response" to a sting, he says. Symptoms can include rash, hives,
throat swelling and, in severe cases, death.
"But most people have been stung and know whether or not they're allergic,"
he says. "If there's any doubt, Mary either does a 'test sting,' or a
patient simply forgoes the apitherapy."
Reed agrees that allergic reactions are relatively rare, but can range from
"mild to severe."
"If I have to do a test sting, I keep a 'bee kit' with antihistamine ready,"
she says. "But for the treatment to be effective you need a little reaction,
although there shouldn't be a lot of swelling or redness."
Before each sting she swabs the area with alcohol, "treating it like a
shot."
For MS, arthritis and "other rheumatic conditions," Reed recommends
twice-weekly treatments between April and October, "when the bees are
flying," with sometimes as many as 30 stings per treatment. After six months
most of the dozen or so people she has treated were improved enough to
discontinue the therapy.
"So beneficial"
Sharon Georgevich of Washington, Mo., who says she had suffered from muscle
spasms most of her life and more recently from arthritis, came to Reed for
treatments "two to three stings per sessions twice a week for six or seven
years."
"It was so beneficial, just made me feel good and more relaxed," says
Georgevich, 55. "Since I moved to Washington a few years ago I don't come so
often, but I still sometimes make the long drive for a treatment."
Georgevich says the improvement in her condition has been "immense," and
recommends it for anyone not allergic to bee venom.
"It's terrific therapy," she says. "To me it's the most wonderful thing in
the world."
For more information, visit www.apitherapy.org.
GRAPHIC: PHOTO, GRAPHICCOLOR GRAPHIC by KRT - Honey's antioxidants
Honey is almost all sugar, but it contains antioxidant chemicals, which
neutralize cell-damaging free radicals.
(Above heading was illustrated with a color picture of a bear-shaped honey
container)
NUTRIENTS IN HONEY
(color pie charts showing:)< Water - 17%
Sugars
Fructose - 39%
Glucose - 31%
Maltose, sucrose - 13%
Protein, amino acids, vitamins, minerals - 0.5%
NOTE: Do not total 100% due to rounding
RECENT HEALTH STUDY
25 men ages 18 to 68 raised their blood antioxidant levels by drinking a
mixture of 4 tablespoons honey and 16 ounces of water daily.
Source: American Chemical Society, National Honey Board (U.S.) ; PHOTOS BY
STEPHANIE S. CORDLE; (1) COLOR PHOTO - Mary Reed (right) uses a honeybee to
give herself a sting recently at her home near Farmington, Mo. Reed's
granddaughter Rachel Mynear, 10 (center), and her friend Taylor Rankin, 11,
take a peek.; (2) COLOR PHOTO - A honeybee leaves its stinger in the arm of
Harry Reed.; (3) COLOR PHOTO - Mary Reed gives her husband, Harry, a sting
using a honeybee from a hive at her home near Farmington.; (4) PHOTO - Mary
Reed uses a jar to collect honeybees from one of the three hives she keeps
on her farm.
--
For this and many more articles, see Paul Jones' website at
http://www.mult-sclerosis.org/
John
are. Then you can make your own bee venom. Honey bees everywhere will be
greatfull. Grateful, whatever.
John the houseboy
Denise the artist