As I mentioned before, I had to stop taking my prescription medication on the Tuesday after Easter. I broke out in hives, and I'm assuming that it was due to my medication. It was a new batch (I'd just picked up a refill).
This past Friday I had an appointment with my rheumatologist. I was really nervous going into it because I had an expectation that she was going to tell me that the bee venom therapy was a bunch of hippy hoo-haa. I had steeled myself to defend my decision, and had a little speech planned of what I was going to say.
She asked me how I was feeling, and I told her that I was fine--a *little* achy in the mornings, but mostly the achiness and hand fatigue came from working, particularly tying and cutting.
"Have you been taking or doing anything else to manage the RA since you stopped the medication?"
Uh-oh. Here it comes.
"I've been stinging myself with bees." I said very quickly.
My doctor did a double take. "What?"
"Bees. I've been stinging myself with bees. My friend is a bee-keeper, and he told me that some people use bee venom as a treatment for RA." I was starting to feel a little sheepish, but so far I wasn't getting any condescending looks, so I kept going. "So I started researching it online, and there's a lot of information which seems... legitimate…" I said weakly.
"Bee stings?"
"Have you heard of it?"
"No, I haven't," she said, but she seemed more interested than judging.
I told her what I had read--melittin which is the main chemical in the venom, works in three ways:
1) it blocks the expression of the gene which causes the inflammation
2) it causes the body to produce its own natural corticosteroids which combat the inflammation.
3) It is also an immune system modulator
"So…how do you do it?"
I told her about how I collect them into the jar, use tweezers to select an individual bee, and place it where I want the sting. I also told her about my visit to the apitheripist and the venom injections.
"How often do you do it?"
"One or two stings every other or every third day at the moment. I'm still in the stages where I have some swelling as a tissue reaction, but that's supposed to go away once you get stung enough. I think I'm almost there."
"Doesn't it hurt?"
"Well, yes, but not that badly. It burns when it's happening, but that goes away after a minute. Its the swelling and itching over the next couple of days that's more annoying than anything, but like I said, that should go away soon.
"I've never been stung by a bee, but people say that it really hurts!"
"I think it mostly hurts because you're shocked. You don't expect to get stung, and it's something that most people want to avoid. I know it's coming, and I know how it is going to feel, and I'm doing it to myself. Plus, I think about the side effects of the other medications, and this just seems like something I have to try. My plan was to give myself three months as a trial period. If it seems like it isn't working, then we can explore my other options with medications, but i it seems like it is working, I can continue with it."
I told my doctor that it occurred to me that the hives may have been a result of the do wonder if it had something to do with the interaction of the bee venom and the hydroxycholoroquine, but I hadn't stung myself in several days when I took the meeds, so I think it's unlikely. It seems more likely that the drugs (which were generic) had possibly come from a different manufacturer than the previous batch.
She did bring up that she wasn't sure what kind of effect the stinging would have on my adrenals if they are consistently being asked to release corticosteroids. This isn't something I have encountered in my research. I brought up the point that beekeepers get stung all the time, and there doesn't seem to be any mention about that, at least not that I've found--I think I'll pose that question to the apitherapy forum.
Can I just say how much more I like and respect my doctor after this? Not that I didn't like or respect her before, but I left her office feeling really validated :-)
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