THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 1, 1995 TAG: 9504290060
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Linda McNatt
LENGTH: Long : 171 lines
The Lord made bees. And the bees make honey.
But it's not the sweet nectar of the honeybees that Chris Wood longs for, not even the honeycomb.
Wood wants the sting. In fact, she feels she has to have it.
The Smithfield woman finds relief when the bee punctures her skin with its stinger, plunges the barbed shaft into her flesh and lets loose the toxic venom that the Lord obviously meant originally as the insect's defense mechanism.
Wood thinks, though, that the venom is good for other things as well, like relieving the symptoms of arthritis, lupus, chronic fatigue syndrome, endometriosis and, specificially, her own multiple sclerosis.
In the sting of the bee, or, rather, the sting of several bees at one time - every other day when the symptoms are really bad - Wood finds relief from the fatigue, muscle weakness, blurred vision and poor balance that MS has brought her way in the 25 years since she was first diagnosed.
And she is just one of thousands throughout the world who believe in the benefits of apitherapy, from the Latin word apis for bee, meaning the medicinal use of products from the hive.
The numbers who support this natural method of healing are growing so rapidly, in fact, that last year the Multiple Sclerosis Association of America dedicated $25,000 to finding a technique to extract natural bee venom. This year, more than $100,000 will be invested in a three-phase research project to test the serum on victims of advanced MS.
And last weekend, apitherapy advocates worldwide converged on Toronto, Canada, for a three-day seminar to learn more from physicians and scientists about the potential health benefits of natural bee byproducts.
Interest in alternative medicines has grown tremendously during the past decade as more people are seeking answers to their health problems outside the traditional medical community.
Wood, 56, was a young mother of four children when she found out she had MS. It was her optometrist who noticed the first signs and sent her to a neurologist. MS affects every bodily function involving muscles.
By the time she made the appointment and saw the doctor, Wood was dragging her left foot. At the time, she knew little about the roller coaster disease that would take her through hills of fairly good health and valleys of near-paralysis for the rest of her life. Thankfully, she said, she has never had to resort to using a wheelchair like some MS victims. During bad times, she depended on canes and family members and friends to help her walk.
Wood tried several of the drugs that sometimes lessen the effects of MS. But the disease is so unpredictable that she, like other MS victims, never knew how long the drugs would work.
Finally, after years of suffering, she had to be hospitalized to receive mega doses of steroids during the worst attacks.
``If I had not remained up about this, I probably would be in a wheelchair,'' Wood said. ``The main thing is I can't get too hot or too tired. I don't hurt, but I get real weak. I have no endurance.''
Soon after one hospitalization about two years ago, Wood saw a television talk show about bee sting therapy for arthritis and for MS. She watched, she said, fascinated, as the woman featured on the show told her own MS story.
Wood first tried the treatment after she and her husband, a vice president at Smithfield Foods, bought a farm in Georgia. They went to the farm for the first time in March 1993. One of the first neighbors they met was a beekeeper.
When Wood's MS started bothering her, she said her daughter suggested she get stung.
``When I first asked the man, he wouldn't talk about it for about two days,'' Wood recalled. ``Then, finally, he asked me which side was the worse. He stung me right over the knee. It really helped my balance tremendously.''
That was one sting. The next May, Wood's family returned to the farm. When she walked out to watch the men put up a fence one especially warm day, she knew in a short while she had overtaxed herself. Soon she could barely move.
``I tried 10 stings that time,'' she said. ``I can see a difference within three hours after the stings. Within 24 hours, there is a dramatic difference.''
It is a beekeeper, in fact, who is credited with promoting the modern apitherapy movement in this country. Charles Mraz was treating his own arthritis with bee stings when a woman who had MS came to him and asked for help. Word spread quickly after the woman's symptoms subsided.
Today, at age 90, Mraz, who lives in Vermont, is still active and travels extensively promoting apitherapy. Like Wagner, he has written a book about his experiences and his belief in the healing power of bees.
The power, however, was recognized long before the modern movement. Ancient writers as early as 800 B.C. noted benefits bees could provide man, according to the National Institute of Health in its publication ``Alternative Medicine, Expanding Medical Horizons.'' Charlemagne is said to have treated himself with bee stings.
And the Koran refers to bee products in the following terms: ``There proceeded from their bellies a liquor wherein is a medicine for men.''
The American Apitherapy Society contends that allergic reactions to bee venom are rare, occurring mostly from stings by related species but not by the honeybee.
The procedures the society recommends include always testing a new patient first with a small amount of venom to check for allergies and never using bee venom without having available an emergency bee-sting kit containing epinephrine.
The risk of an allergic reaction that MS patients are taking with bee sting therapy is one reason the MSA decided to fund the research, said Peter Damiri, public relations director for that organization.
``Bee sting therapy is very widespread underground in the MS community,'' he said. ``There are a lot of people contacting beekeepers, a lot of MS victims forming bee sting support groups. The MS Association has taken the approach that there has to be some answers somewhere. We want to find those answers.''
Dr. John Santilli of Bridgeport, Conn., an immunologist heading the research for MSA, said he doesn't find it unusual that MS victims would resort to unorthodox treatments. The disease, he said, is totally unpredictable, alternately getting worse and then stabilizing throughout a patient's life. There is no way to say how quickly anybody will progress to the chronic progressive, or final, stage of the disease.
Santilli got interested in bee sting therapy through one of his patients, a young man who was in a wheelchair. Then the man started apitherapy.
``Now, five years later, he has improved his life by at least 50 percent,'' Santilli said. ``At least now he has a quality of life. In conventional medicine, we don't have all the answers. I think it's time we look at everything. But we must prove it scientifically.''
For about a year, Wood confined her treatments to trips to the family's farm. Last winter, she purchased her own hive. But the bees died when temperatures plunged, and Wood was without the treatment for a couple of months.
Sam Lively, a friend who lives in Chesapeake and helps Wood with the stings, said that the Smithfield woman, without regular treatment, was walking with a cane and holding on to Lively's arm.
``When she's on bee venom, she can walk, go shopping, go all day as long as she's got the bees,'' Lively said.
And recently, Lively tried a couple of stings for arthritis in her own shoulders. She said the pain quickly disappeared.
Wood now has a new hive, and the beekeeper she bought the hive from tends the bees regularly.
The Apitherapy Society recommends that a patient be stung at a specific site relative to the illness and repeating the stings over a period of time. Proponents say that the best results are obtained when there is a ``good reaction'' - considerable swelling and inflammation. They recommend leaving the stinger in for several minutes, because the pouch will continue to pump venom.
``They say you get the best results after the venom begins to build up in your body,'' Wood said.
For more than a year after she started receiving the stings, Wood was afraid to tell her doctor. Soon after she confessed to his secretary, she came home to find a message from the doctor on her answering machine: ``I have another MS patient. She's in a wheelchair. May I give her your telephone number?''
Wood has taken no steroids or other medications for her disease since she started the stings.
``That suits me,'' she said. ``I'm getting along just fine with bee stings.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color staff photos by John H. Sheally II.
Bees are applied to Chris Wood's shoulder by Sam Lively, a friend
who helps Wood receive stings.
MORE INFORMATION ON APITHERAPY
Write to Multiple Sclerosis Association of America, 601 White
Horse Pike, Oaklyn, N.J. 08107 or call (609) 858-3211
Call American Apitherapy Society at (800) 823-3460
For more about the ``Scientific Symposium'' in Toronto sponsored
by the Apitherapy Society April 28-30, call (800) 668-3656.)
To order ``How Well Are You Willing to Bee?'' by Pat Wagner,
write to Wagner at 5431 Lucy Dr., Waldorf, Md. 20601. Cost is $27
To order ``Health and the Honeybee'' by Charles Mraz, call
(800) 603-3577. Cost is $12.95
Look for an upcoming segment on apitherapy on NBC News'
television program ``Dateline.'' It should air in May or June.
KEYWORDS: BEE THERAPY MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS MS TREATMENT ALTERNATIVE
MEDICINE by CNB