Dealing With Headaches

Yes — you read that right. Bee venom therapy for migraines, MS, arthritis and other chronic pain has been around for decades. According to Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld’s Dr. Rosenfeld’s Guide To Alternative Medicine, in the mid 1990’s, over 4000 people in the United States was on bee venom therapy (officially known as apitherapy). The best way to get bee venom is — you guessed it — to get stung by live honeybees. The stinging sites are the same as accupressure or accupuncture points.

However, according to apitherapists, you can also get the good stuff from bee venom from eating honey or other bee products like royal jelly. You can also get an injection of honeybee venom, but that’s not considered as potent. However, considering the international honeybee shortage, you are probably lucky to get a hold of anything you can get.

Apitherapy is performed both by licened practitioners and lay practitioners (usually bee keepers). They do have their own parent groups depending on what country you live. America has The American Apitherapy Society. Therapuetic essential oils are also used in combination with the apitherapy.

By the way, if you are allergic to bee stings, chronic allergies that are hard to control, have insulin dependent diabetes, heart problems, open tuberculosis or use beta-blockers, you CANNOT use apitherapy unless you want to die. Also, some medicines to have a negative reaction when combined with apitherapy, so talk to your doctor FIRST before going into apitherapy.

The Multiple Sclerosis Society has even awarded grants to research apitherapy for MS patients, so they take this very seriously.

Who Thought This Up?

Apitherapy is a form of folk medicine that is mentioned in ancient Chinese medical texts (that usually talk about Traditional Chinese Medicne and accupuncture)as well as that Greek guy that apparantly took a lot of oaths, Hippocrates. In other words, don’t expect your medical insurance to cover this. And, apitherapy has been approved by the FDA in America “for desenitization purposes only”.

Does It Work For Migraines?

Injesting bee venom infused honey in preparations like Actiflex to ease migraine pain has been around for about 11 years. There is no proof that can is reliable and can be reproduced that bee venom therapy does anything for migraines. Most of the literature available on bee venom therapy for migraines is usually anectodal.

The only medical condition scientifically proven to benefit from bee venom therapy is “post herpectic neuralgia”, which is a nerve disorder. The MS studies are still going on.

When you have migraines, you can get pretty desperate to try anything that eases the pain. If conventional methods do not work — and your doctor approves – then it couldn’t hurt to try bee venom therapy.

But I’m not going to.