Bee venom Therapy
Randall Henniker, in the Richmond City area, has experienced tremendous health advances after using the bee acupuncture therapy. According to Randall, about 75% of people with MS can be helped with this therapy. The book he used as his guide is How Well Are You Willing to Bee? The Beginner’s Auto Fix-it Guide, by Pat Wagner, and it is discussed at her web site.
Randall has graciously offered to talk with people who have MS or have friends or family with MS to discuss the therapy process he used, the fact that while there is no cure, there may be significant help. He has written about his experience in the essay below.
You may reach Randall at randall049 at sign gmail .com
Apitherapy
Honey Bee venom vs. Multiple Sclerosis
Written by Randall Henniker, October, 2010
Prior to September 3, 1998, the quality and control of my life for the previous twenty-five years had been determined by the whims and manifestations of Multiple Sclerosis. On that date, with my first three stings, I began a wonderful odyssey, which lasted for ten years, defied modern medicine and has, thus far, knocked my MS completely out of the ring. The great boxing champion, Muhammed Ali, could have just as well been talking about apitherapy’s bout with MS, when he said that he would, “float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.”
Apitherapy left the former, feared thug, MS, beaten senseless.
Without belaboring my history with this insidious disease, suffice it for me to say that it initially took me on a terrifying, helpless roller coaster ride (the relapse/remitting phase) and then, on what seemed to be, a driver-less, flat-out speeding, no holds barred, drag race against my time and body. During that ride I endured, what may as well have been a surgically attached cane, wheelchairs, a walker, complete numbness of body, tremors so bad that I couldn’t dial touch-tone phones, or put a spoonful of food into my mouth, slurred speech, affected sex-life, extreme fatigue, loss of muscle and strength, diminished vision and yes, abject depression, among others. Good ol’ MS; it never missed a chance to affect every facet of my life.
My former (and last) neurologist, Dr. Picone, who was an excellent physician and worked with me for some years, told me in August ’98, that she had done all that she could for me. She said that I was destined to being chair-bound and bed-ridden. I had gone (suffered) through all that western medicine had to offer, which, believe me, was not inexpensive.
I told her that, in that case, I was going to do one of two things: either my next appointment would be with Dr. Kevorkian, as he had “cured” several MS victims, or that I was going to try bee-venom treatment, which I had read about. She said, “Yes, he’s cured a few, but they’re no longer breathing!” I replied, “True, but you have to expect some side-effects from it.” (Did I mention abject depression earlier?).
[I found -- see note prior to beginning of article] a long list of beekeepers in the area (I was amazed at the number). My first beekeeper was the late David Petticord; a wonderful and informative man. Thus, began my wife’s and my education about honeybees.
He showed me how to take a sprout jar, lightly line the bottom with soft tissue, then, cut three “v.’s,” 1 top and 2 bottom, into a toilet paper core, then, drip raw honey into and around the insides. That became the new temporary hive for my bees.
To reduce the trips to the beekeeper, I invested in a “bee hotel”, which could easily hold several hundred bees. It had three portals: one for each, inserting, retrieving and feeding the bees. Their diet consisted of sugar water, cut one to one.
With long photographic developing tongs, my wife could reach in and take a bee, holding her behind the neck (closing the jar quickly, of course) and apply it to whichever acupuncture spot we had chosen. After the sting, which usually happened almost immediately (I’ve been asked more than once how I get the bees to sting me. I reply, tongue in cheek, that I insult them by telling them that their mother looks like a wasp), Anne would pet the bee and thank it (my wife is a sentimentalist), then crunch it with a paper towel. We would leave the stinger in for about five minutes, because it was still pumping venom, then, extract it with a pair of tweezers.
I averaged six to eight stings every other day, sometimes even more. If some of the “other girls” had managed to escape the jar. Fugitive bees are fairly easy to apprehend, as they usually fly towards light, such as a window. If they’re too active within the jar to easily extract them, placing it inside the refrigerator for ten minutes or so will chill them back to a manageable activity level. Once, I put a jar of hyperactive bees in the fridge, answered a phone call and didn’t retrieve them for a half an hour. They all appeared quite dead at first; that is, until I resurrected them with a hair-dryer. Good as new.
Back to my first sting: After three weeks, my vision returned to where I could read the newspaper without holding it to my nose. After six weeks, I put my cane down and didn’t pick it up for the next nine years. There were no visible signs about me to suggest that I could even spell the words multiple sclerosis, much less have it. Cured? No. Indefinitely arrested? Yes.
In March 2007, I suffered a major, king-hell relapse, putting me right back to where I was nine years before. Why? Go figure. It wasn’t that the “girls” hadn’t done their jobs, as much as the fact that MS is a relentless, soulless, never give-up, sore loser with an attitude problem. The Sword of Damocles always hangs over the heads of MS people, bees or not.
All of western medicin’s MS drugs, Avonex, (which I injected for two years and did nothing more than give me flu-like symptoms the whole time) betaseron, copaxon, and prednisone are autoimmune suppressants. Bee venom activates the immune system, so, by combining them, they will cancel out each other’s effectiveness. But, considering the severity of the relapse, my doctor felt forced to put me back onto prednisone (A quick, side note about my primary care doctor, Dr. Furman: He was so impressed by what the bees had done for me — he had seen me before and after I began stinging — that he sent me to two of his MS patients to share my story with them. I found Dr. Furman to be one of the few more open-minded doctors, in regards to apitherapy, on the scene; not too many of them around, unfortunately.
Fed up with the side effects of prednisone (don’t get me started on that drug), I weaned myself off it in October, following my March relapse. The “girls” welcomed me back with open wings, and everyone joyfully witnessed my recovery, again.
In May, 2008, I began the state in which I find myself today: complete, natural remission from multiple sclerosis. Yes, I still have a couple of lifetime, damaged symptoms, such as double vision (corrected by my eye glasses) and neuropathy (numbness) in my lower legs, but, all in all, I’m 98% symptom-free of MS.
I shall remain indebted forever to my beekeepers, Tom Fifer of Varina, Virginia and the late David Petticord, of Mechanicsville, Virginia for their unselfish help, education (mine), support, and friendship during my struggle with multiple sclerosis. Both of them, stubbornly, refused to accept any payment, which I continually offered.
But, of course, I am most indebted to the 6,524 “little honeys,” who gave up their lives so that I could have… one.
