Bee Venom Therapy

Bee Venom Therapy (BVT) or Apitherapy is a form of holistic medicine that employs the use of honey bee venom by stings or injections to help relieve pain. This form of holistic medicine is only performed by highly trained therapists to ensure there is no harmful or life threatening reactions.

What BVT Can Do

• While there are many personal claims that BVT helps relieve the pain from such diseases as arthritis, multiple sclerosis, tendonitis and fibromyaliga, there very few medical studies. The medical studies that have been performed for both arthritis and multiple sclerosis showed no improvement to pain relief, reduction in the disease or improvements in the quality of life. Both studies agree that the studies were disappointing. Bee venom is a rich source of enzymes, peptides and biogenic amino. While their effects are not entirely known, some scientists believe bee venom can modify a person's immune system to help battle diseases, but more medical studies are needed.

How BVT Works

• Apitherapy works along the basis of acupuncture in that the bee stings or injections are administered in the same location as an acupuncture needle would be placed. The bee sting stimulates a person's adrenal glands to produce cortisol, a human anti-inflammatory chemical to help reduce pain as well as stiffness and swelling. The use of bee venom is to help prevent, heal and recover from painful diseases.

  The apitherapist will meet with a client and determine if the person is allergic to bee venom. Only 2 percent of people are severely allergic to bee venom. The therapy starts slowly, only one or two stings every other day, at least three times a week. The therapy increases as the person is able to tolerate more stings. The length of time for the therapy depends on the severity of the condition that is being treated. As with an accidental bee sting, there is pain as well as redness, itching, swelling and inflammation, but these are not bad signs to the contrary, it is desired and the more of the redness, swelling and itching occurs, without a person going into anaphylaxis, the faster the healing is taking place.

  A person should speak with her physician before beginning any form of alternative therapy, as there are not enough medical studies to prove or disprove this form of therapy.