ࡱ;   R`L.?.?.?.?.?.?.?.?ACT""nH FH 3ŕd@CompObj.?n t(0 H g.0HT?.?`n |(0Hm,.?\HWordDocumentcnHp.Jg 111111111 THE ARLINGTON ADVOCATEPRIVATE  JANUARY 9, 1997 BY Tom Rose Advocate Staff BEE TV Sting Therapy Puts Ames in Prime Time An Arlington woman is abuzz with anticipation awaiting Friday night's airing of "Unsolved Mysteries," a prime time television show that will include a segment exploring her success with bee venom therapy. The story of Kelly Ames, a Mountain Avenue resident who has multiple sclerosis, will be re-created in a seven-minute piece that was shot in July at various Boston-area locations, including Ames' home and Cranberry Bog in Carlisle. "This is my life now," Ames said Monday. "I'm fine. It's amazing. I love talking about it." Ames has become a one-person public relations department for bee venom therapy. After being featured in a health report on WBZ-TV Channel 4 in 1995, stories on Ames have appeared in The Advocate, the Boston Herald, the Boston Globe, the Concord Journal and the Lexington Minuteman. When a producer for the NBC television series first talked to people about bee venom therapy, a Hudson woman who had read one of the stories suggested the producer get in touch with Ames. "I don't know how it happened, but somehow I became the focus," Ames said. Ames, a 1986 graduate of Arlington High School, first noticed something was wrong with her health during her senior year. She would be writing and suddenly her fingers would go numb. It was not until after she fell down a flight of stairs in 1990 that she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a degenerative neurological disease that can result in loss of motor ability and blindness. Ames was in Washington, D.C. when doctors informed her mother of the diagnosis. Her mother told her the news on the telephone. "'What's MS?' I said," Ames recalled. "I was flying home on the plane and I started to go blind in my left eye." Ames began a traditional therapy of steroids and even traveled with her mother to bathe in holy water in Lourdes, France. "I was determined not to let it take my life away," Ames said. The steroids helped, but she gained ten pounds and did not like the side effects. She learned about bee venom therapy from a woman she met in a multiple sclerosis support group. Ames started out with two bee stings on her back every other day. At first her body was so numb from MS that she could not feel the stings. After three months of therapy, she began to feel the stings. "My eyesight came back and I stopped using a cane," Ames said. Ames now gets six stings on her lower back each week. "It gives you a lot of energy," Ames said. "I sometimes sting myself before going out on a Thursday night if I want to put on heels and walk good. It's great." While Ames stresses that bee venom therapy is not a cure, she says she now suffers no symptoms of multiple sclerosis. "It stopped it right in its tracks," said Kelly's mother, Genevieve. "So many people are out there who need help. This is very important." To spread the word about bee venom therapy, Ames and a friend started a support group which meets monthly at a church in Lexington. The group has had as many as 60 people come to a meeting. She has talked to hundreds of people about bee venom therapy, including one Arlington woman who was receiving 90 stings a week before she stopped the therapy. Friday night's show is her chance to reach a nationwide audience. The first scene of the show is of her then-boyfriend helping Ames get out of her car after flying home from Washington. Ames is portrayed by an actress, although she does make an appearance as herself at the end of the segment. In that, Ames shows another Arlington resident, Jean Greeley, and her daughter how to administer the bee stings. Greeley said when she decided to try bee venom therapy, her mother flew up from Florida to try to stop her. After seeing the results, her mother changed her mind. "In three weeks the results showed," Greeley said. "I'm afraid to stop, not that I even want to." Ames said bee venom works for about 40 percent of the people who try it. She is frustrated that apitherapy - as bee venom therapy is called -- has not been studied extensively. "They need to find out why it doesn't work for everybody," she said. Dr. Theodore Chebuliez, president of the American Apitherapy Society, estimates that 4,000 multiple sclerosis sufferers in the United States have tried bee venom therapy. He said cases of full recovery like Ames' are rare. "People who are enormously improved are unfortunately not the most frequent results we get," said Chebuliez, noting that the society is undertaking a survey of bee venom therapy patients to get a better idea of its results. Chebuliez, who is a psychiatrist, does consultations for people interested in bee venom therapy. He stresses that the therapy is not an adopted or accepted therapy and therefore must be thought of as experimental. He is most concerned that interested patients be well aware of all information, urging them to join the society and read its newsletters. "There is one major event that we all are concerned by -- the anaphylactic deadly response," Chebuliez said. "It's very rare. The figures I just recently read are five deaths (a year in the United States) caused by honey bee venom." According to figures from the National Institute on Allergy and Infectious Diseases, there are 40 deaths each year attributed to stinging insects, including wasps, yellow-jackets and bees. For this reason Chebuliez tests all his patients for allergy to bee stings and Ames insists that the people she consults keep a quick-acting drug on hand in case they have an allergic reaction. Chebuliez said several researchers in the United States are conducting studies of apitherapy, but that progress in the field is lagging behind such countries as China and Romania, where bee venom therapy has been in use for hundreds of years. For Ames, solid research cannot come soon enough. "It's not a cure," Ames said. "I hope they do find a cure, but until the it (bee venom) relieves the symptoms. I have no more attacks."  ....()()))()()K:phoenix⫧̥ȧȶƳƐƕƟƇƂȂČ҅ƷՔΌՔȅȂƫƢȂڶȢƷƎƁƨƕƵƤƤǂ֏Â㫇㥊⩖⠏奧‚ⵇ‚ﲃ⧓䧕‚⣞‚SummaryInformation(Microsoft Word 6.0.12 ࡱ; 㲉‚悏ŏŠŏQfŠ悏^ffXfŏŠƏ悏Ƃ17JւŏŠƏ悁$f筂 ffffXf1䂏ꁦgŏQfŠ悏悏^fՁXfՏ穂Տ祂Տ終Տ䵧ׂgfIffIff$f筂ŏŠƏ悏ꁦgꁧgŏŠfggIfIff$f筂ƂŏWJg_悏ŏ笂fgfgŏŠÊ悏gf$f筂笂ɏҁ؏碂碕-碕-碕-碕-ŏQfŠ悏^fƏ悁$f筂碂壔䠩0f̏磂ɏҁ؏碂ُ碂碂碕䠥0ffFf䠵0f̏砂悏f堵0f̏硂ɏҁ؏碂碕-ُ碂碂碕Ƃf碕悁整f̏箂؏碂碕‚ُ碂碂̏硂碕f悁8f粃Ffύ?i鍀ꪨ͛뢮ɋ쬮񸴼ӑ޺ŷړݝߍ۹^غŃ殯昙顠闖diMAINdϫԦ˂ !"S8&uuDUuDCcGC uDC #45BRS[Q9rD 8 s R52IpQ^!H$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$,0,H+H,0 !K"@"Normal3 ]a c"A@"Default Paragraph Font+@ Endnote Text *@ Endnote Referenceh@ Footnote Text &@! 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