Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Indians Use Bee Venom Therapy to Treat Arthritis, Multiple Sclerosis

Bee Sting-New Treatment Regimen for Arthritis, Multiple Sclerosis
By Anuradha Mascarenhas, The Indian Express, 5/13/2008

While most of us rush to the doctor if stung by a red coloured wasp, there are others who wait for the bee keeper to remove a live bee from its hive with a pair of tweezers, hold it next to the skin and wait for it to sting. And they do it as part of a treatment regimen - apitherapy, the medical use of honeybee products that include the use of honey, pollen, propolis, royal jelly and even bee venom.

Dr Mukund Bhide, a software consultant from Mumbai should know. Suffering from multiple sclerosis, Bhide has had a prolonged battle with the disease for several years and after watching a television programme that spoke of the benefits of apitherapy, he started his own search for a place that could offer live bee stings.

Bhide zeroed down to Pune-based Central Bee Research and Training Institute (CBRTI) and urged the officials to administer live bee stings. “I was really fed up with this pain. I could not walk properly and had to drag my feet despite my crutches. So when the road to modern medicine has its limitations I decided what harm could a bee sting do,” asks Bhide.

A year and five sessions of some 50 bee stings each later, Bhide craved for more…

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