Stinging on the Spine

From books and apitherapists, I have been strongly advised to sting along my spine.  About a month ago,  when Samuel put all 16 on my spine, I felt good (see picture below).  Weirdly good.  And then I felt good for *days*.  I still feel pretty good in comparison to the past several months.

I haven't felt good all summer--in fact, I've had a pretty rough time, and my right hand is visibly and permanently disfigured--even more so than it was 3 months ago.  It's terrifying, but it's equally fascinating to observe.

I was at my cousin Geoff's recently and we were talking about what it would be like to be on a plane that is going down and what would/could you do.  He said "Witness it.  That's about all you could do--witness the hell out of it."  That's a little bit how I feel about the RA.  "Be here now,"like he says in the book.

Anyway.  I have been putting at least 8 stings on my spine per session ever since.  

There are 2 ways to do this, and I don't know if one is preferable to the another in terms of effectiveness.  The first way is to put the stings on each side of the spine, space about 2" apart.  The other is to sting directly on the spine.  This is something I want to ask about at the conference.

It hurts the worst at the bottom near my rear end.  I don't do it there too often as it is such a tender spot.  Stinging there usually involves some degree of hyperventilation before Samuel reminds me to breathe deeply.  But I do it quite often on my mid-and upper spine, and it isn't as painful there.  In fact, Christian did my stings for me the other day directly on the upper spine, and it was about as easy to take as getting 10 stings on your spine could possibly be.  I think the more you sting in an area, the less sensitive it becomes to the venom's fire.

I did 20 stings this morning.  Up until this point I've only done 16 at a time.  Afterwards I felt slightly headache-y and queasy, but not much and not for long.  That might actually be a good sign.

With rheumatoid arthritis, that's apparently what you want--a general systemic body reaction.  Enough stings will catalyze a flu-like reaction but won't kill you (usually/hopefully).  That seems to be like a switch on your immune system to shut off the RA.  We pushed it this morning with an intention to provoke that reaction. 

  

Okay, remember this photo?  Let me tell you something creepy.  Right after Samuel took this snapshot I texted it to some family members and friends.  Remember when I said "My kinky friend said "Please.  Send.  Me.  More."?  Remember that? 

 Boy, I sure do, because it turns out that phone number hasn't been my friends' number for several months...  Don't know who I was communicating with or what they think those welts on my back are...