Visualize for a moment that you are getting stung by bees...for pain relief. Oxymoron? Sure sounds like it if you're subjecting yourself to pain to relieve pain. This is how apitherapy works, though. Also referred to as bee venom therapy, apitherapy is found t be effective in alleviating pain experienced by chronic pain sufferers. This includes rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis (MS). The pain that accompanies these two chronic conditions are rarely alleviated by regular pain relievers.

For thousands of years, man has been using bee venom therapy. The ancient Egyptians and Greeks recorded apitherapy in their medical writings. Today, bee venom therapy is more commonly used in Asia, South America, and Eastern Europe.

The use of bee stings for treatment started when beekeepers observed that they felt relief from their arthritis pains after they were stung numerous times. Many studies on apitherapy being conducted today are looking into bee stings as treatment for cavities, acid reflux disease, and a host of other medical conditions. In the United States, however, apitherapy is mainly being used for alleviating pain from rheumatic disorders.

In most medical circles, apitherapy remains a controversial issue, as its potential for providing pain relieve is still largely being explored. In the United States, at least 50 doctors have report positive results on using bee venom for treating not just pain but also arthritic conditions, MS, and other health issues. Bee venom therapy has also been reported effective in treating asthma, high blood pressure, premenstrual syndrome, and hearing loss.

What exactly is in bee venom that makes it an effective pain reliever? There are about 40 ingredients in bee venom, and one of them is mellitin, which is anti-inflammatory agent that is found to be 100 times much stronger than cortisone. There is also adolapin, which has anti-inflammatory and pain-blocking properties.

Practitioners of apitherapy believe that all the ingredients in bee venom work in conjunction with each other prompting the body to create and release more compounds that promote natural healing. Exactly how all the bee venom components work together to provide pain relief is still largely unknown. What is known is that a complex series of reaction in the body is produced upon contact with bee venom. Homeopaths theorize that apitherapy stresses the immune system, prompting it to become stronger. They also believe that bee venom therapy helps increase blood flow and reduce swelling.

Live bees are rarely used by therapists for administering treatment; instead, bee venom is administered from different carriers including injectables and creams. Previously, therapists used live bees; the bees were stimulated so they would sting the affected areas or acupuncture points. According to apitherapy practitioners, bee venom is the most effective when it directly comes from a live bee between late string and early fall. This is the time when there are good pollen sources for bees so their venom can be more potent.

Bee venom can be in the form of cream, ointment, liniment or injection, and any of these is used depending on what disease is being treatment. For injectables, a qualified practitioner injects the venom solution intradermally (between the layers of the skin) or subcutaneously (under the skin) in order to copy the effect of a bee sting.